Our Home at Loreto Bay

In early November 2005 we moved from Seattle to our "new" home at Loreto Bay. It had been almost five years since we first came down to look at the new development that promised a chance to live fully, while treading lightly, in this exciting part of the world. During that time this page has chronicled decisions and revelations about our house and the community. It began as a stop for our friends and relatives, but we found that we were getting questions from lots of people who were thinking about buying. If you have questions or comments, there are mail links above and below. (On this page the newest info is presented at the top, but first-time visitors will find basic information about the project and the area later on. Pictures may be bigger than they look. Right-click and your browser may let you open them full-size.)

Our New Independence

We finally decided to compromise a bit.

Putting Loreto
Bay in its place -- in Nopolo We hadn't meant to bring much stuff from Seattle. We had sold cars, books and tools, given away most of our clothes and outdoor gear, left boxes of items that people might bring with them if they came to visit. Driving to Baja sounded like too much trouble. We would make every trip, including our retirement move, by airline. But there was a nagging suspicion that, at least until the promised New Urbanism began to flourish, more transportation options were needed.

We started shopping for kayaks. We bought a car. We rearranged our bicycles (it was clear that the inch-wide tires on the road bike were not going to get us very far, especially since the boulevard in front of our house has turned into the authentic Baja dirt road).

Life in vaction mode, on our earlier visits, had always been pleasant, but it had seemed kind of . . . improvised. Staying for a week or two, we barely had time to get the larder properly stocked before it was time to start worrying about getting rid of leftovers. There was always either a cab or a rental car to look for. Now there's little that requires scheduling, and the days seem fuller.

One of the biggest rewards of full-time residency has been that we finally felt justified in getting our own internet connection. The free wireless at the hotel had been our only link with the outside world in years past, but it had become increasingly less convenient. Now we can communicate (or play video games) without even leaving the house. And of course the big new TV is at home in the armoire built specially for it, waiting to beam Futurama re-runs, plus anything worthwhile that ever appears on HBO. We have found web pages for some of the channels but are still looking for a convenient way to find program schedules.

Life is changing for others at Loreto Bay as well. Here in our neighborhood there's not much construction noise, though there is work being done on a few custom homes. In Aqua Viva construction is proceeding and homes are being delivered. We've heard that, of the 500 or so houses planned for that area, it looks like about a third will get done. The picture above shows a tidy little Loreto Bay, a lot of its potential still intact.

Some more panoramic pictures:

From the tee boxes on the hill.
Here is a view of the Paseo Mision de Loreto from November 2007, its pavement largely intact.
From November 2008, there are some photos of communal courtyards under construction, starting near the Inn. Follow this link for a clickable map.
The Inn at Loreto Bay, formerly the Camino Real, was closed for a time in 2009 and then reopened under management by Fonatur. Here's a twilight view of the Inn, from our stay in May 2007.
Our previous home page picture is a panorama taken from our second-floor terrace. By an amazing coincidence, there's a "before" picture, taken from a few yards away in December 2004 during our first visit. Much has changed since then. I hope eventually to have a profile identifying some of the geographic features.
From our trip to Ciudad Constitutión, a look back toward the mountains near Loreto; and, from a bit further on, a view to the south.

Other information:

The The new Loreto Bay website. This is a bit of an update. As of the first of 2009, Replay Resorts is no longer managing the project. The new manager is Alvarez & Marsal, and the owners are looking harder than ever for a buyer.
Meant to help homeowners during construction and inspection, The Construction Coach also offers insight into the project as a whole. Take a look at their updates and links -- plus frequent comments at the Nopolo News
West Coast Mill Works, the source for cabinetry and custom furniture -- they built our two custom beds as well as our closet.
Local real estate listings, including houses at Loreto Bay, from Alexander Realty; and Dorado Realty.
For current homeowners, there's My Loreto Bay, a site for news and discussion. Or, more likely now, the owner-run site Club Loreto Bay
There are hundreds of pictures of the town and the project on the developer's Flickr website but it has not been updated in a long time.
There are before-and-after pictures of their beautiful blue house by our neighbors Will and Cynthia, plus many from their other travels.
Many of the pictures that gave buyers hope early on are by pioneer Loreto Bay resident and prolific photographer Linda Angelo.
Where in the World is Nellie? A blog by a former Loreto Bay employee, current resident and Loreto entrepreneur. Nellie says that she's no longer updating her site, but she is occasionally tempted to return for a paragraph or two.
Living Loreto, a new blog by Drew McNabb, likely to provide the sort of detail that was Nellie's hallmark.
Watch and Learn: Lost in Loreto A long-running chronicle of the adventures, in Loreto and elsewhere, of Kelli and Robert McDill.
A serious and thorough 2006 critique of the project's sustainability claims from Baja Life magazine, in Acrobat format (with some beautiful pictures of the area by the way). Note that detractors are given the last word; the developers seem to have good answers for some of these questions.

Previously published information about our house in particular:

One of our two custom beds from West Coast Mill Works.
The agave that is the first element of our upstairs landscape.
Our interior courtyard.
A look at the dining room window.
Tile risers on our stairs.
The kitchen from its pass-through.
Some of our living-room furniture, from Casa Mesquite.
The complete downstairs floorplan.
Landscape plan in Acrobat format, by Darwin Webb, a landscape architect whose office is located in Issaquah, Washington, not far from us here in Seattle.

Evening comes to the golf course. Open this file in your browser for a larger picture.

More about Baja:

It was talk about sustainability that first caught our attention , but even for us the appeal to the senses is undeniable. The following sites have general information about the area:

Loreto.com, a well-run commercial site by Baja Life Online.
Tofino Expeditions, featuring some great pictures from their kayak trips.
Weather Underground's data for Loreto.
The Baja Big Fish Company for information about the big fish and lots more.
The magazine BajaInsider.com has driving distances, some city maps, and other useful information.
Omni Resources, my source for topographic maps of the area.
The Google satellite map of the area.
Historical photographs from The Mandeville Special Collections Library at UCSD.
Baja Nomad, a spirited forum where one may encounter a more skeptical view of development on the peninsula.

We are still happy with our choice to live on the main street -- it gives us a lot to look at. We may have traded some tranquility for the vistas that other houses lack, but at this point we're glad that we happened to notice this unique lot. The offset from the house next door makes this one of the few of its kind to have a window in the dining room (though it gives up a number of windows on the back side of the house). And, most of all of course, there's the disappearing exterior wall that turned a cramped little hallway into a colonnade. Here's a picture from the Paseo Misión de Loreto.