Like many of the great Yucatán estates, this property started as a cattle ranch in 1650, part of the sprawling agricultural economy that colonial Spanish landowners built across the region. The hacienda shifted to henequen production around 1850, joining the fiber boom that eventually filled the peninsula with more than a thousand similar estates processing the plant into rope and twine. When synthetic fibers collapsed that industry in the early 20th century, most haciendas were abandoned outright, and this one sat reclaimed by jungle for decades.
Architect Jorge Borja led a deliberately restrained restoration that opened as Chablé Resort in 2016, choosing to preserve the crumbling textures of the old factory and main house rather than rebuild them to look new. The property’s spa is built around a private cenote, a natural limestone sinkhole the ancient Maya considered sacred, and the resort won the 2017 Prix Versailles for architecture and design at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.