Reserva Santa Fe, Santa María Atarasquillo

For the website I do include the names and the certifications—there they add credibility, which is different from WhatsApp where they get in the way.

Main description

Reserva Santa Fe — Santa María Atarasquillo, Lerma, State of Mexico

There is a 197-hectare forest fifteen minutes from Santa Fe. Almost no one knows it exists.

Reserva Santa Fe was born within the Otomí-Mexica Forest with an unusual premise for Mexican real estate development: to build the minimum necessary. Of the 197 hectares of the property, 100 remain as protected forest and only 42 are allocated to single-family lots. On each parcel, only about 14% of the surface area can be built. The result is a density so low that the nearest neighbor is usually a tree.

It is the only regenerative real estate project in Mexico, and one of only three developments in the world designated as Emerging Community by the International Living Future Institute. The distinction is not decorative: it implies a verifiable commitment to the restoration of the surroundings, self-sufficiency in resources, and real integration between architecture and the ecosystem.

The master plan is by Mario Schjetnan and GDU, with conservation work led by Pronatura and construction by firms such as HEMAA and López Baz y Calleja. The Madroño Pavilion, the first completed building of the project, will be the first building in Latin America certified under the Living Building Challenge standard: self-sufficient in water and energy, conceived to return more than it consumes.

But the experience cannot be explained by certifications. It is explained by walking the twenty-five kilometers of trails, paddling on the lake at dawn, discovering El Caracol—a meditation space hidden among the trees—or simply stepping out onto the terrace at a time when the city no longer sounds.

Location and access

Santa María Atarasquillo, Lerma, State of Mexico. Fifteen minutes from Santa Fe, Mexico City, via direct connection to the Mexico–Toluca Highway.

*Availability and prices subject to change without prior notice.