Posted on 04/23/2025 1:18:25 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The 75-year-old star has teamed up with a group of ecologically minded real estate moguls to develop a remote stretch of the Mexican shoreline in a way that doesn't make the locals hate them.
Costalegre, a 200-mile ribbon of Pacific coastline stretching between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, is one of the last truly wild corners of Mexico. There are no mega-resorts here. No spring-break beach clubs or 20-story condos. Just sandpipers skimming the surf, green sea turtles digging moonlit nests — and, every so often, Richard Gere strolling on the beach.
This is Xala, a 3,000-acre development so “low-density,” it’s practically invisible. Co-founded by Mexican entrepreneur Ricardo Santa Cruz and supported by Gere and a group of ecologically minded billionaires, Xala is reimagining luxury from the earth up. Instead of golf courses and gated estates, think turtle sanctuaries and organic mango groves.
Santa Cruz could have built thousands of hotel rooms on the property — he has environmental approval for 4,500 of them — but instead, he’s vowed to build just 93. The sole resort planned for the property, a Six Senses opening in 2027, will comprise 51 stand-alone pool villas and 42 branded residences. The rest of the land? Protected dunes, a handful of rancho home lots starting at $6.5 million (42 of the 75 have already sold) and a private wave break engineered to restore the beach, not flatten it.
“Let nature be the protagonist,” Santa Cruz says, sounding a bit like a tagline for one of Gere’s movies. “Untapped resources are becoming harder and harder to find. Now people are actually realizing it’s more profitable to preserve.”
Gere got involved nearly seven years ago — but not before doing his due diligence. He met with locals, grilled environmentalists and made sure the project wouldn’t just preserve the coast, but also boost the communities of farmers and shrimpers that surround it.
Enter Sierra a Mar (Ridge to Reef), the conservation nonprofit Gere co-founded with marine conservationist Stefanie Brendl. What started as an on-site exploration grew into a sweeping coastal plan covering 62 miles of mountains, mangroves and lagoons. With Gere as its frontman, Sierra a Mar now coordinates with neighboring landowners to create one of the most ambitious ecotourism alliances in Latin America.
“Turning [overbuilt land] back is infinitely harder than doing it right in the first place,” says Brendl. “But that requires vision — and guts.”
Meanwhile, the buyer pool for those Xala ranch lots reads like a Forbes list. Santa Cruz says seven billionaires are already on board. “Most are from California, a big tech contingent,” he says. “They don’t want Mom and Dad’s country club resort. They want something real.”
They’ll get it, all right, plus a dash of surreal — like that private high-performance surf break, courtesy of an artificial reef constructed with 3,000 truckloads of boulders from a nearby quarry. There’s also a protected estuary with 150 bird species and no golf carts in sight, and a sculptural lighthouse by Mexican artist Gonzalo Lebrija that doubles as a stage for movie nights and shamanic ceremonies.
But the real flex? Community regeneration. The Xala Foundation — launched in 2020 and led by community development specialist Cecilia Paredes, in partnership with Santa Cruz and partners Juan Bremer and Jeronimo Bremer — runs a suite of programs from entrepreneurship training for local women to an Alice Waters-inspired organic school garden. One flagship initiative, Descúbrete (“Discover Yourself”), helps adults and students alike build self-esteem and uncover passions. “Our role is to awaken our communities’ inner power to regenerate themselves,” says Paredes.
So far, all this social impact talk seems to be delivering tangible results. Nearly half the local population has been directly — and positively — impacted by the project. Water access has been revolutionized through a newly tapped aquifer and year-round irrigation system that serves 232 local families. Farmers can now grow higher-value crops across multiple rotations. Locals’ shrimp harvests from a nearby lagoon have soared thanks to mangrove-friendly techniques spearheaded by Sierra a Mar.
There’s also Xala Farms, a planned 200-acre organic spread with a seed bank of 50-plus crop species and a goal of full culinary self-sufficiency. “Owners can live the experience,” says Santa Cruz. “Pick your produce. Or have it delivered.”
The green sea turtles, of course, are a key part of the story. A government-run turtle camp on Xala’s beach means their survival rate jumps fivefold, and there’s now better security, improved staff housing and an educational center built with Xala support. From August through March, guests and homeowners can help release hatchlings into the surf at sunset — sometimes by the thousands.
Ultimately, though, the biggest draw may not be the turtles, the surf or even the movie star. It’s the feeling that something is being built here without wrecking what was already priceless about the land.
As Brendl puts it: “Imagine having clean water, clean air and happy communities around you that don’t hate you because you ruined the place. That has got to be the ultimate amenity.”
This story appears in the April 2025 Sustainability digital issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to see the rest of the issue.
;) I just wanted to see who was awake.
It’s a freaking joke! Do you get it?
His is the developer .
Yes. Santa Cruz doesn’t seem to want to build a ‘resort’ or ‘condos’. He seems to want to work with the needs of the natural environment. He claims to have increased turtle hatchings by 200% over the past 20 years in Xala.
They won’t “develop the coastline in a way that doesn’t make the locals hate them” unless they allow public access to the ocean. The first thing all these developers do is put up a big wall to keep anyone out except the owners.
Under Mexican law, the beaches are public property, and developers are required to provide public beach access every 1/2 kilometer. Of course none do this, and they pay off the state and federal regulators to look the other way.
This is another classic example of the rich building themselves an isolated enclave and making themselves out as heroes in the process. Complete BS.
More important, how do they taste?
I think I’ll wait and see what he does, before I believe that it’s ‘BS’.
Change the turtle egg status as a delicacy in Latin America and there will be plenty of turtles. After the females lay their eggs the local go out en masse and dig them up to cook them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.