They paved paradise, put up all-inclusive hotels and Mayan theme parks, turned a fishing village into a party town, and rebranded it all the Riviera Maya.
But, after decades dedicated to bigger and newer, a counter-evolution has come to the sun-kissed coast between the concrete castles of Cancun and the Mayan pyramid of Tulum.
Now, a new resort on the Yucatan’s Caribbean coast is seeking to recapture what first made it enchanting.
Kin Sol Soleil is the creation of Jose Luis Moreno, an adventurous Mexican architect who first discovered Cancun 40 years ago, and bought a 200-acre coconut plantation on Maroma, a soft white sand crescent bay nearby. He built a cottage that grew into a compound where friends visited. When a blight killed off half his palms, he decided to build more homes.
A second disaster — Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 — inspired Moreno to transform his project into Maroma, the first luxury boutique hotel on the Yucatan coast. The Morenos ran it for almost two decades, slowly building a mini-empire around it that included Amarte, a garden hotel along with a restaurant and lounge just off Route 307, the coastal highway that was the Riviera Maya’s main drag even before machetes cut roads through the jungle and mangrove to the beach.
In 2002, Moreno sold Maroma to the Orient Express hotel chain (now called Belmond), but kept his home and several others he’d built as rental villas, all tucked within Maroma’s boundaries. After buying back another house he’d built for a Dallas couple, he combined the entire affair into Kin Sol Soleil, an elegant twelve-room hideaway.
Named after the words for sun in Mayan, Spanish and French, its location makes it like an infant cradled in the arms of its mother, Maroma. It resembles her, too, in her earlier days, when small size and a big commitment to service and style set it apart from the tower hotels in Cancun.
In early February, that Dallas duo were among Kin Sol Soleil’s first guests. Today, their house is Pavo Real by the Sea, the property’s Mexican-flavored French restaurant helmed by Guillaume Raynal, a veteran of the grand Beauvilliers restaurant in Paris. Hotel guests can dine there, or, when there’s space, in Maroma’s three restaurants. And while Kin Sol Soleil has its own gym and treatment rooms, they can also wander the few steps to Maroma’s Kinan spa. It’s another vaulted palapa by Moreno, but this time a grand one paid for with a $2 million investment from Maroma’s second owner, Belmond.
The combination of access to Maroma’s services with Kin Sol Soleil’s intimacy is so unbeatable that you may never want to leave. But after a few meals on the property, Moreno recommends a trip to the nearby fishing village of Puerto Morelos, essentially untouched by progress, where the sublime simplicity of Los Pelicanos, a restaurant and beach-club serving fresh-caught seafood and cold cervezas, is a reminder of what the Yucatan used to be.
Almost as unspoiled as Puerto Morelos is Akumal, a sun-bleached little beach town between Playa del Carmen and Tulum, where villas and condos are available for rent at a wide range of prices. Akumal Bay itself, where sea turtles famously feast on underwater grass, can feel crowded, so look slightly north to what is effectively a gated community, North Akumal on quiet Half Moon Bay, a short swim from the Great Mayan Reef that runs 190 miles south from Cancun.
Among those villas are the sprawling three-bedroom Casa Romero, complete with a stone observation tower, and the intimate Blue Tang townhouses — part of a gated complex owned by a Philadelphia couple — located on the edge of Yal Kul, an extraordinary lagoon where fresh and seawater mix.
Visitors can snorkel inland to explore submerged caves teeming with fish, or kick out towards the reef through calm, shallow waters. Early in the morning or late in the day, local residents have the lagoon — and a kaleidoscopic array of sea-life — all to themselves.
Akumal has several restaurants and beach bars, but a short drive north there’s more variety, quality and excitement. The authentic heart of the coast also beats at Al Cielo, a boutique hotel on pristine Xpu-Ha beach that lets non-guests buy a $150pp day pass entitling them to a drink, enjoy a palapa on the sand and a three-course lunch with a bottle of wine.
At night, the fastest-growing city in Latin America, Playa del Carmen, is anything but soothing, but it has an impressive array of restaurants that embrace regional authenticity.
Yaxche (5th Ave. N. at Calle 22nd) serves classic Mayan dishes like Cochinita Pibil, succulent marinated pork cooked in banana leaves, and Black Turkey, a shredded bird served in mole and stuffed with egg and pork. At Maiz de Mar, influential Mexico City chef Enrique Olvera makes magic with local seafood, such as a sublime sour lime scallop and coconut ceviche.
Another improvement has greatly enhanced the quality of life on this Riviera: Many local restaurants serve Mexican wines, often from the Baja peninsula, that rival their French counterparts at a fraction of the price.
Of course, championship golf courses, French food and Wi-Fi are all well and good. But ultimately, the more some things change, the more vital the arrival of new properties like Kin Sol Soleil.