Casa Mam

Casa Mam stands on the beach inside the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, the UNESCO-listed stretch of coast and lagoon south of Tulum where building is tightly limited and neighbours are measured in kilometres. Four bedrooms sleep twelve. The house was designed to sit lightly in that setting: wind and solar power run the appliances, rainwater is harvested for most of what the house uses, and the plan opens on both sides so that air moves through the rooms without air conditioning for much of the year. The main palapa faces the Caribbean, and dunes, palms and hammocks run down to a private stretch of white sand.

The master holds a California king with a second queen bed on an upper level beneath a double-height ceiling, a bathroom with a jacuzzi and shower, jungle and ocean views and direct access to the pool deck. Two further bedrooms hold king beds, one with an ocean-view balcony and seating area and one looking west over the lagoon to the sunset from a balcony set in the garden. The fourth holds two single beds with an ocean-view balcony. All four have ensuite bathrooms, air conditioning, safes and wireless internet. Inside there is a gourmet kitchen, lounge space, indoor and outdoor dining, a smart television and a speaker system.

There are two pools: a climatised main pool on the ocean deck, and an infinity pool on the roof, where the deck turns three hundred and sixty degrees to take in the Caribbean on one side and the lagoon on the other. That roof is the place for early yoga and for the last of the light. Below, the palapa shades the oceanfront gathering space, kayaks wait for the lagoon, and beach chairs, umbrellas, sun loungers and hammocks are set out along the sand. A concierge handles the planning, two housekeepers work through the house daily from eight until four, and a gardener comes three times a week. A private chef, in-villa spa treatments and yacht charters are arranged on request.

The house is reached by an unpaved road whose condition varies with the season, and the reserve’s rules ask that outside ATVs, water-sports equipment and sound systems stay outside it; the same eco-design that makes the house self-sufficient asks for air conditioning to run no more than twelve hours a day. Restaurants and bars are thirty to forty minutes away, Tulum town about forty, Tulum International Airport an hour and Cancun roughly two and a half. For guests who want the Caribbean without a neighbour in sight, Casa Mam gives Villa Experience travellers one of the few private houses inside Sian Ka’an.