Juan Bremer

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Juan Bremer of Xala. Thanks so much for joining us today. How are you?

Juan Bremer: Very good. And you? How are you?

SSR: Good, thank you. I’m so excited to chat with you. Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

JB: I grew up a bit of all over the place. I mean my first childhood years were in Mexico. And then my dad was an ambassador, and so we had to travel. We went to Moscow in ’87, which was the USSR. It wasn’t even Russia at the time. And then Germany, Sweden a bit of all over. We used to change country pretty often.

SSR: And so many different languages.

JB: Yeah, many different languages. And just basically, yeah, I mean the languages that I speak well is basically English and Spanish and German. We also have German, so it’s a bit of a mix. But our heritage is really, yeah, I mean my forefathers were from Italy, and they arrived to Mexico to build some amazing haciendas. They were planting rice and they had a huge production of rice. There is countryside in our veins in that sense.

SSR: Very cool. And what was it like traveling around as a kid? I mean, you must’ve gotten a love for different places and seeing different cultures.

JB: Look, I mean, it was amazing. We were always very excited to see a new country. It’s funny, but yeah. The only difficult change was from Moscow to Germany because Russians are warm. And it’s very cold there, but as a culture, they were warm. But then Germans, Germany was a bit more difficult than that. And then you need to learn German and otherwise you couldn’t fit in. that was a bit difficult. But then, after one year of learning the language and doing some nice tequila parties, we got well into the German state of mind.

SSR: Right. And did you have to be resilient as a kid too? Being thrown into these different schools and different settings?

JB: Look, very much, very much, very resilient because it’s either you were coming to that new place and either you conquered or you died because it was like new kids, new friends, all things. Yeah, you had to be very resilient in that sense.

SSR: Were you creative as a kid? What were you like as a kid?

JB: Yes, very creative in that sense. I used to have always an idea of a new game or whatever, or discovering something or whatnot and leading my friends into some sort of adventures and whatnot. I always had that kind of personality, having a wild idea and actually go and doing it. Yeah.

SSR: Amazing. And did you have any sense that you would get into hospitality or creativity as you got older? How did you end up getting into the hospitality world?

JB: Look, it’s always when I was a kid, one of the things that I loved, it was a lot about going to these virgin beaches in Mexico. They gave me a feeling of peace. I’m talking about a 8-year-old going to these places where there was nothing, just raw nature and big waves, because we were on the Pacific side more or less. We used to vacation in these places. And that feeling always kept with me. I always wanted to see more of that in that sense. And since a very early age, I always wanted to see how we can do something with basically those places and protect them. That’s where I really started to get inspired with that. It was like a calling from very early.

SSR: Yeah. And you ended up going to school in Germany, right, for communications?

JB: Yeah, that’s what I did. But obviously, but more obviously the design aspect of it, I mean, yeah, I did communications. And obviously with that you get exposed to that, but in reality it was more nature that was inspiring, whether it was the mountains or the trees or whatever it is. That was very, very, very inspiring in that sense. Because design, in my view, it’s very different.

Basically, for me, what it was is that a lot of times a lot of architects or design people, they’re all about the design and their ideas and their ego basically. And I think that nature should be the centerpiece of design. Yes, you have to do an amazing design, but if that design, in my view stands out and breaks with the harmony of nature, then it doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean that they’re just doing palapas, and so wood structures or whatever. I don’t mean that at all, but I mean that it has to be in harmony with it and blend and be an extension of it.

SSR: How did you get into hospitality?

JB: It was a bit by accident because [my brother and I] had bought a lot of land. And then at the end of the day, we need to do something with that land. And we started developing it because the crisis came in 2008. And then we had a lot of land that we were not going to sell as land. And we said, “Okay. We need to develop this.” And that’s how we started to do it. Then we did Mandarina first. And then Mandarina was the first project that I did that I led. And yes, basically that’s what it was. That’s how we started.

SSR: Oh, very cool. Yeah. You guys bought some land.

JB: And Ricardo Santa Cruz. Yeah, it’s my brother and I founded the company and then Ricardo joined. Ricardo Santa Cruz.

SSR: Amazing. And so, you had this vision. What was your vision when you bought this land? Or was it just the opportunity? Or I always am curious, the chicken or the egg. Was it you were looking for something and then you found this or the land found you and then you were able to develop?

JB: I was looking for it at some point. I was doing developments in Mexico City and city like developments and whatnot. But then I started, I always had this calling since I was a kid, do something on the beach on these virgin places.

And obviously Mexico, all the coastline started to develop. And then I started, that’s before Google Earth, so I used to buy these government plans and you would see what was over there. And I would, like Indiana Jones, basically go into these places with a Jeep. I didn’t have money to rent a plane or anything like that. I went in just opening paths and see how these things look. Obviously you look at the plants and then there’s some interesting structures and whatnot.

And then you just would go there and then you start asking the people there who owns that land and whatnot. And that’s how we discovered where we did Mandarina and that’s how we discovered all the properties like Xala. That’s how I went to see it then, based on exactly that what I’m telling you. Yeah. We had a lot of… It was very cool doing it actually.

SSR: Yeah. And how did you and your brother start this company? I mean, did you raise money? I am always curious, did you have the same kind of idea and you’re like, “Let’s figure out how to do development?”

JB: Yes, it was I had this idea and I was always pushing it. He was working with Roman Sachs. And basically I was always like, “Let’s do this, let’s do this.” And he helped me obviously raise the first tranche of money to actually do this. And then it was passion driven. It was 100% passion driven in that sense. I was very passionate about that and I was just pushing for it, then convincing my brother to join. And then one thing led to another and that’s the way it was, it was very much passion driven.

SSR: Yeah, 100%. And so you said you start in Mexico City before you found this land in Mandarina?

JB: Yeah, yeah, I started that. I was actually, I did also film school and then I went to Los Angeles. I had a movie that was going to be produced, but then the company that was going to produce it basically went bankrupt. And so I was a bit depressed and I took a month off. I went to Puerto Escondido to the beach there. And then after a month I got bored. And my mom had a piece of property in Mexico City. And then after that I said, “Why don’t we do something with this?” like that randomly. “And then I will go back to LA and see how I regain, get the project going again.” And basically that’s how we started doing things in Mexico City. And then that’s where this passion came alive again, my uncle was doing always projects, homes and whatnot at the coast. And I used to visit him and visit those properties and everything. And that’s where that started the search of a piece of land basically.

SSR: Got it. And why did you decide to do a One&Only? Why was that brand the right one for that piece of property?

JB: That’s a good question because for Mandarina, we were looking at Aman, we were looking at even Six Senses at the time, which was a different Six Senses than today. It was just being born at that time. And we’re talking about 2013, whatever. And then there was obviously One&Only. We loved Reethi Rah. We knew One&Only from Palmilla here in Mexico. And then there was also Rosewood that we really liked a lot.

I’ve always been a fan of Aman, but I also thought that One&Only was could have the potential of having that level and being an Aman that is also a bit less boring maybe. And so, I really thought that the brand was really, well, I love what they were doing and what they did in Maldives basically, and what we were doing in Mexico. I thought it was a good alternative to that in the sense at the same level and at the level, but were a little bit more of mojo at the time.

SSR: And what did you learn from that project learned project, building there that’s helped you continue your journey?

JB: Jesus. I mean I learned that you have to make bold decisions. You sit down with a lot of advisors, a lot of people, everybody’s telling you, “This is crazy, you cannot do it, you cannot do it. It’s going to cost so much.” And it goes like that over and over again. And then once you start diving into the project into the problem and everything and you do realize that things are feasible, but it’s incredible how many people say, “This is not possible, it’s not going to happen.” Happened also to me in Mexico City and then you have… Also, when you raise money and everything, you have a lot of people that would tell you, “It’s not broken, don’t fix it, you’re going to make it worse.” And then it’s like you really want to do something that is really successful. It has to be unique, then people will pay for it. And you can’t take that approach of it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Besides being a mediocre approach, it also doesn’t turns into the profits you want them to turn in the level of luxury market that we’re in. Basically, what did I learn? That resilience of saying, “No, we’re going to do it,” and figure a way of doing it. Figure a way of convincing people and having a strong enough personality to make it happen. I didn’t have much track record at the time in that sense. And I had some but not that. And then when things worked out, the One&Only and everything, then obviously the crazy ideas became visionary ideas. That’s the only difference.

SSR: What were some of the crazy/visionary ideas that you did?

JB: No, I mean just the product that you had to have a good amount of land first for the project to work. And I mean I don’t really think it was visionary at all and crazy. I just thought we brought the Asian luxury to Mexico. It has been done in Asia and then we brought it here. I also realized that Mandarina, the beach was good, but you needed to do something. It wasn’t like a Maldives kind of beach, but you had the jungle and you have the topography that was very, very unique, but you had to do something very, very unique for it to work.

It was almost a necessity of basically what do I mean by uniqueness and whatnot. You need to sit down and say, “We’re going to charge a lot more. The market, we’re going to break the market in Mexico. It’s going to be the first time.” And when you’re the first time that really starts charging a lot more and maybe it costs more to build the hotel, then you bring this developer pushback that it hasn’t been done before, but it has been done in Asia, but that’s not the market. Get into these conversations. It’s like the people from LA or the people from San Francisco that go to Bali to and pay whatever, $2,000 a night, then you’re going to give them that three hours away.

But these things that are they sound very obvious, but at the time there’s pushback because it hasn’t been done in Mexico. And so basically it was all of it. The bold ideas were giving 30 hectares to the hotel, doing not stacked up product with standalone stuff. Doing the first, the most expensive project per key, which it was maybe 1.2 million per key, which is not that expensive at all, but it was for Mexico.

And a lot of the resorts in Mexico are five stars in my view in name but the product doesn’t back that up. It’s not like in Asia. It was bringing that from Asia basically. Yeah. Again, it was not radical at all, but it was the first time it was done in Mexico and was push back to do that at the time.

SSR: Yeah. And then after that, is that when you moved on to the Mayakoba development?

JB: Then the Mayakoba development there, it was more my brother that led that. That was an established existing development. It was more an M&A deal and he had that vision. He led it in that sense. What we created wit Mandarina, we did the relaunching of Four Seasons of Mexico City which we almost doubled the EBITDA there with that relaunch so it was very successful. And then Xala, of course, you know Xala, which was a vision of which the CEO at the time of One&Only only because we were looking into doing One&Only Xala at some point said, “I want to house you in Xala.” Because just the concept of Xala being this farm and being alive and was very appealing. I found it very, very appealing. And then one of the things that is very important of the things we do and that are key is also involving the community and protecting nature. Again, nature is for me, if we’re having a conversation about design, nature is the master of design in all aspects. Again, look at, for example, in Mandarina we had these 300 year old trees that are huge, that are just, it’s amazing.

They are like temples. It’s amazing. And then the rock formations, Mandarina, it’s part of a volcano, it was a volcanic crater. The lava that forms all of these formations basically it’s also a feature of design. You have so much stuff on design, you have the colors. One of the things that we thought that it was very important and we put a lot of effort in it was how the light works through the jungle. That was one of the things that was I think one of the most important things.

If you see through the canopy and then suddenly you see these rays of light peer into it. And then at the right time of day you get all of these rays and these forms and shadows and everything. That is quite something. And it’s changing. That’s something that we thought, “How do we do something that blends with that and catches that?” You’ll see a lot of framing of views. You see windows on top so that these rays can come into the rooms as well. And so the lighting aspect of it was I think very, very important. When you’re looking at the Mandarina from Alma, one of the main, one of the dining needs, you look at it, it’s like an amphitheater of jungle. It’s just this part of the crater of the volcano. You have 60 rooms below, you really see nothing.

You see it’s what is difficult is a lot of creative people, a lot of architects, they want to put their own signature into it. But when you come into these pristine places and these places, it’s putting your ego into it a lot and not respecting the design that is already there. Now, how you do something of a very high level, high-end level and you do something very subtle that really goes in harmony with that. For example, our architects wanted to put concrete in the middle of the jungle, like gray concrete with huge masses, completely brutalistic, which I think doesn’t goes into the jungle that well. I wanted something that really blends in more.

And then there are some places in nature that goes. You see the Aman in Utah, that’s different because a desert, that’s a different feeling in that sense. But when a brutalistic, gray concrete in the jungle, I think it goes much better in arid climates in that sense. Here you have the color palette of the jungle. If you start working from there, it’s great. And then you do some masses and then you do some things. I mean obviously the trees are massive as well. You can work with them, but you need something that blends into it.

What I realized a lot, and that was like, we’re like it wasn’t working. We have, we did one iteration, another iteration. And this is one of the things, you have huge pressure from your stakeholders to just go and do it. And it’s like you know it’s not right and the process isn’t right. And at the end of the day, it’s just not right. It’s not respectful of nature and it’s not going to help the business plan. It’s going to hurt the business plan.

And then what you end up doing is having to really say, “No, it’s not right, and we need to redesign it and it’s going to take more time.” It’s very difficult because to get these things right, in my experience, you never get them at the first time. And sometimes you see something and you know it works, but then you have to tell the architect like, “No.” And then the architect that we had checked out basically on the project and his second in command took over. And that’s when we got the things that we like.

And I have to say, it must be a bit of a difficult for some architects to work with us because we do have clear ideas and what we think, we have a clear vision. And we edit a lot. We edit all the time. It’s a constant co-creation with the architect. I’m not an architect. I will never pretend to be, but I do know what I want and what works for the site. At least I think I know.

SSR: Yeah, exactly.

JB: And with that at least I think I know and go with it. And if I don’t know, when I see it, I will know. And then I see it and I see the designs and I know this is not going to blend. This is not the concept and this is not the vision. It’s very different. I think as a developer, it’s a little bit like you have to have an idea. You have to have a vision. You have to have, “Okay, what do you want to do? What is your site about?” And everything, how do you get inspired in these things? I mean you walk the site, you see the sun setting, and then suddenly all these ideas start coming. It’s really is born from the land, from the experience that you are having in the land.

Is you connecting with that and saying, “Okay, imagine if you do something like here, you would screw this experience. Okay, imagine you do something else here, okay, you would enhance that experience.” And that dialogue starts and then you start a whole process. But it’s not like you sit down and you have the architect tell you what to do because they have the expertise and whatever. I mean, no, it’s like no, it’s you guide the architect in you give them a download, a briefing, that’s a guide on what do you want, what’s the vision, what’s the experience?

And then you start editing and you start seeing, and then you have to say. One of the things that I do a lot is trying to identify if the creative team is getting that download. And then maybe you have to change creative teams and you have to find someone that does get it. It’s not, “Go ahead, do it, design it,” and that’s it. And no, it’s a very, very creative, very design-intensive process, very, very collaborative. But there has to be a clear direction why you’re doing this, why do you want to do that and not that, and so on and forth. It’s a lot of… Give me just one sec because for some reason I think we’re running out of battery. Hold on one second.

Basically, you have to have that clarity what you want, and if you don’t have the clarity, you have to find it. And a lot of times it’s something tells you something, it resonates, it doesn’t resonate, but everything starts with the experience that you have when you go to the site. You have to take sometimes to really go to the site.

And a lot of the times the site tells… You each site has a different personality, it offers a different experience, and that’s what you’re looking for. And once you identify that, in that sense, you start everything, everything. It goes into enhancing that experience. Basically, okay, is concrete enhances the experience, for example? It doesn’t. And what happened a lot with the architects at the beginning there, they wanted, in my view, to put their ego. They were not listening on what the site was about and what was so important.

And for me, Mandarina was about the jungle and the light, that the game of light and the play of light through the canopy and whatnot. And that was it. You just needed to enhance that. And then the heights and how you would… We built some things that were almost floating. And again, this pulls into these steep slopes. And basically the tree houses, we have some tree houses that are 13 meters to reach to the canopy. But again, that’s what you see. It’s the jungle experience because we wanted the canopy experience and the light that goes to it. You go there at the early morning and whatnot, and you see all of these play of light and everything. Again, everything had to do to enhance that.

Maybe another site is about the rock formations and maybe there concrete makes sense. But that’s the thing, it’s a design that has a purpose. A lot of times I see purposeless design. Oh, it’s whatever, a lot of all the architects will tell you there’s a purpose, but behind it’s a big ego of the architect really. And then they market it as a purpose and a whole story behind it. And it’s great design. But at the end of the day, it’s ego.

And I think that the site is what’s important, nature and raw nature. And this is what we do. You go into raw nature sites, it’s a very different design thing. If you go into a city and you create the skyscraper and you’re in a city, it’s a very different approach. But we come to places that are pristine, that are virgin, that are fewer and fewer in the world. And that’s what matters. That, the design guidelines, the vision, the concept, whatever you want to call it is born from what that experience is.

SSR: Yeah. And was it harder for you to do the Four Seasons in Mexico City then? I mean you said your renovations doubled its EBITDA, which is amazing. But how did you approach that? Was it a similar approach or did you have to rethink your process?

JB: That’s a good question because that was a different process. It’s not nature, but you had an existing building. Again, working with the existing building and say, “Okay, what is this building in this experience about?” And again, each building, if you translate this thinking, but to a building, not to nature, it’s strikingly similar. Because why? For example, the Four Seasons in Mexico City was all about the center courtyard. You are in a very busy city. You’re outside, you hear ambulances, you hear noise, you can hear traffic, you hear the whole… It’s a very big city, Mexico, your city. Then suddenly you get into the courtyard and it’s like a sanctuary. There is like you wanted to listen to water because it’s calming and you wanted to enhance that experience.

And everything that happens into that courtyard I thought has to be just perfect. It has to be out of the ordinary. It has to be a little piece of paradise in the middle of a very chaotic city. The concept became that. And then you have the concept and the whole design starts working on it. The colors that you choose and whatnot. And then the vegetation, it was all about choosing the right trees and you try things and you had certain constraints. You couldn’t put too big a trees because it’s not a garden, it’s really a roof.

The center courtyard is a roof because below is a parking. You didn’t have a lot of depth for that. We had those challenges. And then for example, one of the things or the biggest concepts is, okay, you want this to be a little piece of Eden, then put crawlers in the walls, and then imagine you have all of this nature around this courtyard.

SSR: Amazing.

JB: And then that whole experience became incredible. You had, you saw people taking Instagram pictures in the places there, which they were not really doing before. Again, it’s in this case, the building, the concept gave us, okay, where is this experience that you want to enhance? And that was that. We made a whole story about that courtyard and everything. And that’s what is still a unique sales proposition

SSR: I want to get to Xala because that’s your latest baby. Set the stage for us. Tell us about where it’s located and then what your idea was for this beautiful location.

JB: Yeah, I mean, first of all, it’s like it’s always a collaborative process between my brother, Jerónimo, and Ricardo. But again, I was looking at these properties and these government plans. And then going with the Jeep, looking at them. And what strike me about Xala is, and this is different, it’s this raw Pacific Ocean and this wide beach and very temperamental, huge waves and whatnot.

And then you have all agriculture, and then you have jungle behind the agriculture. You have the jungle, agriculture and then the beach. And then that’s what I thought, this is an experience of a Mexican hacienda, a countryside plantation that is what it is. That’s what we said, we have to put mangoes and we had to do tropical fruits. We decided to go with mangoes. It became all around agriculture. Xala, it’s all around agriculture in the sense that obviously we’re going to try to plant as much as we can so that people that to live off the product of the land here in that sense. And imagine you get every week delivered your mangoes from Xala or your lettuce or your whatever it is or whatever you decide to plant.

For example, you’re going to buy something here that you can tell us, “I want a North chart and please plant A, B, C, D and all of this stuff and experiment with this and that,” and we’ll do that. It’s going to be a playground also for people to what do you want to plant, without having the hassle of taking care of it. But it has to be around the land and around agriculture. If you see, we wanted it to be very, very complimentary in Mandarina. In Mandarina, it’s very raw, very if you will nomadic. It was a story of raw nature.

In Xala it’s more about humans. When we started to settle down thousands of years ago than we started doing agriculture. And that started the process of civilization. And that’s very homo sapiens story that is very much in our deep brain, touches that because you’re still having a lot in touch with nature. It’s agriculture. But then you look at night in the middle of the mango plantation and you see the Milky Way and you go, “Wow.” And you are still in the mango plantation. Then you go to the beach and it’s even more raw.

And then the northern point of Xala is it’s wild. It’s really wild. You see, you have jaguars there, you have a huge estuary where you have sharks come in and it’s very, very wild. You have agriculture and untamed nature at the same time, which I think makes it very, very unique.

SSR: Because you have five miles along the coast.

JB: It’s nine kilometers should be around that much. Yeah, yeah. And all of this is natural protected area, the whole beachfront part, we’re building behind, 100 meters behind, 150 sometimes. There’s a lot of conservation efforts to go as well. For example, we have these Ridge to Reef Foundation that we want to protect the oceans around this area and beyond even. And so there’s a lot of things that we want to do protecting because we believe that these places, whether it’s the ocean or the wilderness around it, it’s very important that we protect them because it’s there are everything is being developed and especially in countries like Mexico. We have that.

And also involving the community, it’s like there’s two pillars that we’re basing our developments, which is the community, including and helping the community. There are many ways of doing that. A lot of it’s empowering the community, giving it business opportunities, but with empowering them. And they have always terrific ideas and everything, and it’s just how to support that so it’s very, very, very important. And nature. Nature has to be protected. It has to be enhanced. And that’s two things that are core values for us in that sense. And that’s why our projects are very low density, because the purest form of protecting nature is low density as well.

SSR: 100%. And so, it’s near Puerto of Vallarta, just to give people a sense, it’s like between what and what in Mexico?

JB: Carellas is south of Puerto Vallarta, is between Carellas and like Puerto Vallarta. Or between the Four Seasons Tamarindo and Puerto Vallarta. That’s where we are.

SSR: Got it. And I know going back to community is a big part. I mean it’s for One&Only Mandarina, you made 1,600 jobs or something, right? You’re doing that here as well.

JB: You create jobs. Yeah. You create a lot of jobs. But I mean, we do want to go beyond that. We do go beyond that because a lot of it’s empowering because there’s people that may have a good business idea and then you have to coach them and whatnot and help them out in that. And that’s giving some contracts to the locals and coaching them and whatnot. That’s job creation is part of it, yes. But I think if you do your own business, you also have more freedom and it’s more empowering and it’s more into that, going into that.

SSR: Okay. And so the site’s going to have residences and the Six Senses, right?

JB: And I think the Six Senses was an amazing choice. I think I couldn’t imagine a better one because the whole values of this, what I call the new Six Senses in that and they always had them. Don’t get me wrong. But they were really laying them out very strongly. All this aspect about inclusion of nature and wellness and this holistic approach, it’s very much Xala.

SSR: Yeah, and I guess that’s a good question. For you, twofold, what does sustainability mean? You said low density buildings, and then what does wellness means? What does wellness mean to you and how are you trying to push that here? Or not push it, but bring it and showcase it and offer it to your residences and your guests?

JB: Well, wellness has two aspects that are very linked, even if people maybe might think they’re not. But it’s one is the physical aspect, really having things like exercise routines and stuff that keep you healthy. And then there’s emotional part. A lot of times people might be stressed. The physical well-being, and then there’s the soul well-being in that sense. They play a part very, very importantly. And how do you cater that?

And that’s it’s how do you calm the mind? And Xala already the nature, walking, doing a walking meditation down the beach, it calms your mind after a good session of exercise, which is very physical. For example, you have contemplation sessions, you might have some yoga sessions and whatnot, but it’s trying to get the physical and the not physical taken care of and giving people opportunity to take care of that.

And then learning routines, learning things. It’s not going to be like the typical wellness spa where you just get a massage and whatnot and do a facial. It has to be more encompassing in that sense. Spiritual well-being and physical wellbeing if you will.

SSR: And I think just being immersed with nature, with everything that you’re offering with the land and the estuaries and all the things that-

JB: And there is, yeah, living very close to nature that’s here and it’s part of it, and that’s why we want to enhance that always. But the part of agriculture that you’re eating what you see here, that it’s being planted and there’s something almost mystical about that. And I think it has to do with how our species evolved. And there’s something that you are connected to that process that when you go to the supermarket and buy a mango or whatever, there’s this disconnect. And here you’re seeing the tree, the fruits are getting ripe in the tree, and then there is something that, “Wow, this is from here.” And that’s something that, besides being a nice story, I think it resonates some subconscious parts of our brain in that sense.

SSR: Yeah, 100%. What’s the challenge of working on such beautiful land and trying to protect it?

JB: Look, it’s really about density a lot. If you really want to protect a place of nature, you see you have to see each side has a balance or unbalance. And each site is different. For example, Xala was very, very unbalanced. Why? Because a lot of jungle was really cut off to do agriculture, which became something important for the project. But obviously the moment you cut jungle to do agriculture, there is an impact. It was unbalanced in that sense. What we did is we’re going to reforest a good deal of it or recover that, so getting the balance back. And then making sure that obviously the plantations that were done in the past and everything will be reduced. And the plantations that we have, can we work in balance because we are reforesting more of that?

And then for example, give you one example. The turtles that lay their eggs here, this is just having there people to make sure that no one takes their eggs away basically, And that’s it. And that there’s no illegal hunting going on, that there is stuff like that. A lot of this is having presence, physical presence to do that. It’s reforesting on one side, obviously physical presence. And also when you do agriculture and you do it, then there is also a way of reforesting that if you mix different types of plants and whatnot, that you don’t have only one kind.

But the most important thing in Xala when we arrived, it was half of it, maybe 70% of it was barren land, 30% was still jungle. Now it’s going to be maybe 50/50. There’s Xala with this development is in better shape than it was before. And the low density that we’re putting whatever we’re building still we are at a better shape than when we bought it. Reforesting was part of it.

And Mandarina, it was more about protecting the existing trees and just cutting as little as possible. Of course there was some impact because it was more pristine in that sense. But whatever impact we did, again through low density and whatnot, didn’t turn into an unbalance of the site.

SSR: 100%. And you have a foundation arm too, as part of your giving back?

JB: Right. Yeah, that’s the social foundation, Xala With Heart. And then Ridge to Reef is ecological foundation. It’s almost two pillars, community, nature, and the development is at the center of those two pillars in that sense. It’s almost a way of how could we as homo sapiens live in a harmonious way with our surroundings? Xala is almost a case study for that or should be, but that would be what our desire would be.

SSR: And tell us more about the program. You are literally helping get them entrepreneur certification programs. And then also helping programs for middle and high school students as well?

JB: Yes. Also, teaching a lot about nature and what is important to protect nature. And then empowering women and making sure the husbands are not jealous because then there is then you might have this dynamic where you have a woman that is getting empowered and whatnot, but then the husband starts getting jealous. And so how to work around it. It’s a lot of psychology around it.

The deepest impact that you can make in the community is… Obviously creating jobs makes an economic impact. But the biggest impact in my view is really working to those things like, okay, women get empowered without generating a crisis with the husband. I mean, it might sound a bit crazy, but it happens sometimes here in these places. And for example, that’s one of the things. The other thing is how do you turn a business idea into something? And how can we help you on that and how can we help you to manage things and learn the one-on-one of business?

And that you see, we have a guy for example, that wanted to do something and he had some ideas. And this actually in Mandarina. Right now, he’s very successful. He put up a carpentry shop and he has clients like One&Only Mandarina, like the Auberge in Punta de Mita. And it’s became incredible successful. And it’s someone that we coached and helped into doing that. And that’s suddenly then you see him and he’s so motivated, so happy, and having his own business that is thriving. And there’s a success story of that. It’s a guy that used to make $500 a month, and right now it’s selling a million dollars a year.

SSR: Amazing. Yeah.

JB: And that’s what you see. And it’s a local guy that had some ideas and through all this coaching. And then he wanted to give up at some point, and we were like, “Don’t give up. Do this or that. You’re making very little money.” And, “My friends have better jobs, are making three times as much.” And Ricardo would tell him, for example, he was a lot he talk with him, “Today, yes. Next year, and you’re going to make 500 more and the next year you’re going to make 1,000 more. And then you’re going to surpass your bodies that didn’t have these ideas and didn’t have that entrepreneurial spirit and so on, so forth.” It’s fascinating and it’s great to do that.

And then the kids, obviously we have to have programs because those are the next generation. A lot of it is it’s empowerment, empowerment. Because if people are empowered and believe in themselves and they can have an idea and actually materialize it, and that’s what this is about.

SSR: Wait, what was his idea? I’m curious. What did he make, the guy you just talked about?

JB: Oh, he does from everything carpentry, from doors to windows to over maintenance of the wood. For example, he’s doing a lot of the maintenance in One&Only in Mandarina. That’s a lot of wood there. And he recruited people and like that. He’s not a carpenter himself. He’s a businessman that hired carpenters and everything and put up his shop.

SSR: Is that what keeps you passionate and keeps you going is giving back?

JB: Absolutely. That, I couldn’t do something that it’s hurting the community and hurting nature. No, obviously that’s what. That and those two things, protecting nature, helping the committee and the creative process are incredibly passionate.

SSR: Yeah. Is there one part of the process that you love the most?

JB: That, the process of figuring out what is this going to be and that’s very creative. What is the concept of this development? How are we going to help the community? Where are the needs? How can we protect nature? All of that. The process of figuring it out, it’s very, very rewarding in that sense. And then obviously implement it, is it’s great because you start seeing those ideas take ground, even though there are obstacles. But all these obstacles that you face in these projects, what keeps you going is that, is that you’re contributing.

SSR: Yeah, that you’re giving back. Well, it’s amazing. I hate to end this conversation, but for the sake of time, we always… Sorry, let me start that again. I hate to end this conversation, but for the sake of time, we always end this podcast with the title of the podcast. Throughout your… I mean, this project has been 15 years in the making, right? Hasn’t it been two decades since you bought it?

JB: We got a lot of years that it was on hold and we had the ’08 crisis and all that stuff. It’s really not… Once we decided, “Okay, it’s time to develop it,” it hasn’t been that far away. It was maybe two years ago that we decided, “Okay, now it’s time for Xala to…” We were busy in whether it’s a Four Seasons, Mexico City or [inaudible 00:51:38] and the Mandarina and the M&A strategy that my brother was leading.

SSR: Now for the sake of time, hate to end the podcast, but we always end with the question that is the podcast. What has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned along the way?

JB: Is have an idea, have a vision, be open as well. Be flexible. Keep your ego in check. And trust and really leave the results up to God because there are many things that you’re not going to control. You have a vision, you try to convince. You try to make it happen, but you also have to detach from the results. And that’s my learning post-Mandarina. I was not there in Mandarina on that site. I was a bit younger and a bit was a different dynamic. But the biggest learning, if you say of having done that, that’s it.

SSR: Got it. Well, I guess being a little younger and just having those crazy ideas that became visionary was well worth it. And congrats on Xala. Can’t wait. It opens in 2026. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us today.

JB: Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Photos and renderings courtesy of Architects Interactivo and Xala