One&Only Mandarina

The road in winds through a canopy of ceiba, strangler fig and wild mango, with the Pacific appearing in flashes below. One&Only Mandarina opened in November 2020 on this headland of the Riviera Nayarit, an hour north of Puerto Vallarta, as the first One&Only in Mexico and the anchor of the Mandarina estate, 265 hectares of jungle and shoreline assembled by RLH Properties.

History

RLH Properties, the Mexican company behind Rosewood Mayakoba and other resort estates, bought the land in the 2010s and brought in Kerzner's One&Only as the first operator. The site had never been built on. The brief to the architect was to put the villas in without clearing the forest, and the resort opened after a construction period in which the builders mapped and kept most of the mature trees. A Rosewood later joined the estate on the neighbouring shore, together with a polo club and private residences.

Architecture and design

Rick Joy, the Tucson architect known for buildings in rammed earth and timber in the Sonoran desert, designed the resort. The villas are of two kinds: treehouses raised on stilts in the canopy, with the sea seen through the leaves, and cliff villas set into the rock face above the water, each with a private pool. The materials are local hardwood, stone and cantera, left plain. The public rooms are open pavilions. Interiors were kept spare so that the forest does the decorating.

Rooms and suites

There are 105 villas in all, each with a private plunge pool or pool and a terrace, from one-bedroom treehouses to larger cliff villas with several bedrooms and the top of the scale on the point. A private villa estate, Villa One, stands apart with its own staff and pools. Buggies run guests along the forest paths between villas, restaurants and beach, because the site climbs steeply and the distances between the canopy and the cove are long. Bathrooms open onto the terraces and most villas have outdoor showers under the trees.

Dining

Carao is the restaurant of Enrique Olvera, the chef of Pujol in Mexico City and Cosme in New York, serving a menu drawn from the Pacific coast. Alma is the all-day restaurant by the main pool. Jetty Beach Club on the cove serves lunch on the sand. The resort runs a mezcal and tequila programme and a cooking school.

Wellness

The One&Only Spa sits in the forest with treatment pavilions open to the trees, a hammam and a hydrotherapy circuit. The fitness programme uses the trails and the beach, and the estate's polo and equestrian club offers riding.

Weddings and events

Weddings are held on the beach cove, on the cliff-top lawns and in the open pavilions, with the whole resort available for buyouts. The scale is that of a destination wedding of a few dozen to a hundred or so guests rather than a convention; meeting space is limited to a small number of private rooms and the restaurants after hours. The KidsOnly club keeps children occupied during ceremonies.

Location

Mandarina lies on the coast of Nayarit between the villages of Lo de Marcos and San Francisco, known locally as San Pancho, about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta's Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport. Sayulita and Punta de Mita are about half an hour south. As a resort on the Riviera Nayarit it is the one furthest into the jungle, with no building visible from the beach.