BOATER’S BLISS
Puerto Los Cabos resort
It was the plans for the marina that hooked Matt Campbell’s interest in Puerto Los Cabos more than a decade ago.
The avid sport fisherman, a businessman from Calgary, had been visiting the Cabo San Lucas area in Mexico for about 25 years prior to the start of the luxury development that included a large marina and golf course.
“I knew the area and I started watching as the marina construction began. I would travel out there every month or so and look at the progress. The more I looked at it, the more I thought this was going to be a pretty nice place,” he says. When he could see that the marina really was coming together and that development on the resort was well underway, he bought two lots in the La Noria subdivision.
“(It’s) close to the boats so I could ride my bike to the boat, I could almost see the boat from the house,” he says. “The marina was finished before my house was finished. I was one of the very first boats in the marina. The house was completed 10 years ago and I’ve been there ever since.”
The marina has 200 slips, and will build out to 400 slips in the next couple of years. Slips range in size from 40 to 70 feet, and the marina can accommodate yachts of up to 250 feet long.
Puerto Los Cabos is an 809-hectare (2,000 acre) master-planned, mixed-use resort near the southern tip of the Baja peninsula on the west coast of Mexico. It includes gated residential neighbourhoods, hotels, the marina, golf courses, gardens and the Puerto Los Cabos Club. Three of the neighbourhoods are well underway or complete, with some lots still available in the Fundadores and El Altillo neighbourhoods. Lots here start around US$200,000 and go up to $7 million for a large beach-front lot. (All prices are in USD.)
Development is currently concentrating further east in the resort from Campbell’s community, at the West Enclave, an exclusive Ritz-Carlton Reserve Residence community.
“It will be the fourth Ritz-Carlton Reserve property to open, and only the second with branded residential,” says Jeff Lawrence, director of sales and marketing at Puerto Los Cabos.
The first phase of 27 homes in this community launched sales two years ago, and nine of the properties are available.
“Those houses are very large houses,” Lawrence says. “The four-bedrooms are 5,300 square feet interior, with 10,000 square feet total built. The five-bedrooms are 6,000 square feet with 11,000 square feet total built space. In the five-bedroom house, if you have a head on every pillow, you can sleep 17 people. There’s also a media room with a full bath that could be a sixth bedroom if you wanted it to be.”
The four-bedroom homes start at $4.9 million, while the five-bedroom homes start at $5.4 million. Homes come with pools, patios, terraces and garages with room for two cars and a golf cart or ATVtype vehicle. Homeowner association dues for the West Enclave are expected to be in the $4,500 to $5,000 per month range.
Launching sales in December will be condos from mid-$2 million, with HOA fees projected around $3,500 a month.
“It’s an updated modern take on a traditional hacienda,” Lawrence says of the architectural style. “The condos are really just the condo version of the homes. Same design language, same finishes, same detailing on the construction.”
These will be three-bedroom homes in the 3,500-square-foot range, and four-bedroom penthouses just under 4,600 square feet. Five homes will be grouped in each three-storey building.
The Ritz-Carlton hotel anchor for this development is Zadun, scheduled to open in early 2018.
“All of the residences here will have the full services of the RitzCarlton, so you can have all those services right at your house — room service, housekeeping, engineering support. You’ll have dedicated residential concierge. There’s a separate beach club next door that will be all the beach amenities for those condos,” Lawrence says.
While these are whole-ownership properties, the Ritz-Carlton Reserve will offer a rental program if owners wish to participate.
For more information on the resort, visit puertoloscabos.com. To take a virtual tour of the West Enclave, visit www.theenclave.mx.
For the golfers, the first 18 holes are open — with the front nine Greg Norman Signature and the back nine are Jack Nicklaus Signature. In mid-December, another nine holes will open to complete the Jack Nicklaus plan, and in a few more years, the Norman course will be completed.
While there is plenty to do at Puerto Los Cabos, from golfing to restaurants, shopping and spas, what Matt Campbell ultimately appreciates about the place is that it’s also a place where the sense of adventure runs deep.
Campbell has competed in the Bisbee’s Los Cabos fishing tournament many times, even landing on the podium a few times in the catch and release category. He’s discovered off-road racing, including the Baja 1,000. And he really simply enjoys being out on the water.
“You’ve gotta be the kind of person to make your own fun,” he says.