Destination next: Mexico
This off-grid haven on the Oaxacan coast has 14 elegant pool villas showcasing local materials and crafts and overlooking the ocean.
HOTEL TERRESTRE
Mexico
Sequestered between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains on Mexico’s Oaxacan coast, the strikingly minimalist Hotel Terrestre opens February 1 with 14 brutalist-inspired, solar-powered pool villas.
Constructed entirely from local materials, including handmake bricks, sourced within 1km of the site by acclaimed Mexican architect Alberto Kalach, the resort is the latest offering from boutique hotel pioneers Grupo Habita. The group’s conversion of a 17th-century palace in Mexico City, combining colonial grandeur with an industrial edge, set the template for a string of super-cool, design-driven boltholes across the country and now in New York and Chicago.
Terrestre is its second hotel on this stretch of the Oaxacan coast near Puerto Escondido, and together with a nearby artists’ retreat, forms part of a new design enclave.
The 14 villas are open to the elements with slotted wooden doors and windows in lieu of glass. Each features a ground-floor garden with mountain views and al fresco shower (stocked with locally made soaps scented with copal tree resin), and an upper-level terrace with a small private pool overlooking the ocean. The off-grid buildings are oriented to take advantage of prevailing sea breezes rather than relying on airconditioning, and the minimalist interiors featuring exposed brick and concrete echo the building’s facade. Custom furniture by Mexican designer Oscar Hagerman contributes to this strong connection with the outdoors, and in many ways the villas appear to grow out of the earth.
The resort’s open-air restaurant, Terricola, and wellness centre are set in the gardens. The latter features a pool and hammam with seven chambers offering chilled and hot pools as well as steam baths. There’s also an Ocean Club on the beach with lounge chairs and umbrellas.
Guests are encouraged to embrace Terrestre’s off-grid outlook by putting away their devices and reconnecting with nature via bird watching, hiking, surfing and horse riding. There are also visits to local mezcal distilleries or one of the region’s destination restaurants to sample the legendary Oaxacan cuisine.
Villas from $US350 ($490).
CHRISTINE McCABE
Forward planner
Island hopping will take an indulgent new turn when Capella Maldives opens next year in the dreamy Indian Ocean holiday hub. Construction of the 57-villa resort is underway in the Fari Islands, about 50 minutes by speedboat north of the capital, Male. Its nearest neighbours are Ritz-Carlton Maldives, opened in June last year, and Patina Maldives, which opened the preceding month, creating a trio of luxurious lodgings on separate islands to flit between.
Designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and Hong Kong-based interiors guru Andre Fu, Capella will include two eye-popping circular buildings containing, respectively, a dining precinct called Keveli and a spa, with a serene pool at its centre.
While we await its opening, Addicted to Maldives has a special offer on the Patina property, with five nights in an overwater pool villa (pictured) from $US9020 ($12,550), twin-share, guest transfers, and $US100 dining and spa credits.
The resort won a Great Design Award in last year’s Architectural Digest Hotel Awards, and the overwater accommodation exudes tranquillity, looking out over a private pool to the lagoon. The focus is on natural materials in the elegantly minimalist interiors, with a palette of cream and grey.
Patina Maldives also has a permanent art gallery that includes a large-scale installation by world-famous light artist James Turrell, who is a prominent fixture at Hobart’s MONA.
Offer available for stays from May 1-September 22, 2022.
PENNY HUNTER
Book club
THE UNCOMMON READER
Alan Bennett
I’m grateful to my friend Steve for reminding me of this tiny masterpiece by the incomparable Alan Bennett. First appearing as an essay in 2006 in the London Review of Books, it was published a year later by Faber and Faber, which is the 124-page edition I have been lent by Steve. The copy is in good order but has done the rounds of many borrowers, as all the best books should. The fictional narrative concerns Queen Elizabeth II’s chance discovery of mobile libraries and the guilty thrill of reading when one should be doing something more civic-minded, such as visiting shoe factories and wheeling out the inevitable questions to gathered crowds (“Have you come far?”) or being briefed on matters of national importance. “Briefing is not reading,” declares HRH to Sir Kevin, her private secretary. “In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.” Shooting stags at Balmoral, M’am? Clearly not when one is immersed in Proust.
Given the goings-on with son Andrew and grandson Harry, perhaps the real Queen could be burrowing deeply, at this very minute, into books that magically transport to other realities, or is there a remote possibility she’s discovered street library boxes? Imagine the surprise if one of the royal Rollers were to pull up in an outer borough so the Queen could nip out and help herself to the latest Val McDermid. Meantime, I’m delving right back into Bennett’s most recent works, starting with Keeping On Keeping On (2016), which sits sentinel at my bedside. It contains diary entries over a decade, essays, screenplays, even eulogies. It’s so affirming to keep company with an author who never shows off and whose observations are so deliciously wry and penetrating. He’s rarely unkind but when he is, it’s tasty. He writes of Margaret Thatcher as “a mirthless bully” who “should have been buried, as once upon a time monarchs used to be, in the dead of night”. It’s a dig worthy of the hilarious and ever-perceptive David Sedaris, whose A Carnival of Snackery (T+L, January 15-16) is also by my bed. Both are hefty works, less fattening than midnight snacks and much more satisfying.
SUSAN KUROSAWA
Spend it
In an age of uncertainty and worry, never has a good night’s sleep seemed so essential, and top quality pillows should be non-negotiable. The Australian-made Woolstar Eco Wool Pillow “conforms” to cradle the head in sleeping positions and to support the neck. It comes with Woolmark industry certification, is filled with 100 per cent Tasmanian wool, is machine washable, and the manufacturing process is traceable from farm to shelf. There are no harmful chemicals in the mix. Also in the range are 300gsm wool quilts (to fit five bed sizes, from single to super-king).
Medium size pillow, 45cm x 70cm; height, 20cm. $89. Available at specialist homewares stores. woolstar.com.au
SUSAN KUROSAWA
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