The 12 Most Anticipated Hotel Openings of 2016

When limestone collapses around a sinkhole, networks of groundwater beneath are suddenly exposed. These cenotes, as they are called, were sacred places to Mayan communities living on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Chablé opens in May, featuring a destination spa built upon one such sacred ground. Guests will stay in either one of 38 expansive pool villas or one of two three-bedroom presidential suites; or, they may opt to stay in the restored 19th-century hacienda for easy access to Mayan-inspired treatments at the spa. The spa itself will feature nine treatment rooms that seem to float among the waters and massive rock …

Chablé Resort & Spa

Deep in the Yucatan Peninsula, surrounded by sleepy towns and lush, humming jungle, Chablé Resort opened its floor-to-ceiling glass doors in early 2017. The vision was ambitious: a secluded haven combining modern luxury with Mayan mysticism, where guests can indulge in shamanistic spa treatments and sip century-old tequila, swim in a mythical cenote and sleep under canopy in the tropical forest. And while this hedonistic, one-of-a-kind retreat seems borderline fanciful, Chablé delivers, offering exquisite accommodations and local authenticity in a way few resorts can do. The property’s raison d’etre is its ancient Mayan heritage. “We don’t bulldoze nature, and we …

Mayan Gold

CHABLÉ SPA & RESORT, YUCATÁN Mexico’s traditional healing therapies have only had marginal appeal to the wellbeing cognoscenti, but the newly opened Chablé is set to change all that. Set in 750 acres of wild forest in the Yucatan Peninsula, the 4o-Villa spa resort – named after a herb used by the ancient Mayans in their therapies – is centred around a cenote, or sacred natural cave formation. The mood is of an otherworldly Shangri-la of green thickets and natural textures. Using the  weathered 19th-century walls of the original hacienda as a framework, architect Jorge Borja and designer Paulina Moran …