CULTIVATING SEEDS & TRANSFORMING: La Semilla´s Angie Rodriguez & Alexis Schärer.
Editorial
La Semilla´s Angie Rodriguez & Alexis Schärer.
“Every moment and every event of every life on earth plants something in the soul,” monk Thomas Merton meditated. Such seeds of the soul are planted, cultivated, and celebrated in Hotel La Semilla on Playa del Carmen and neighbouring Villa La Semilla on pristine Soliman Bay. Alexis Schärer and Angie Rodriguez, the couple who envisioned and realised its incarnation, had travelled and worked around the world – from cosmopolitan cities like New York, tiny islands in the Caribbean and Balearics, and the mountains of Switzerland – before returning to Rodriguez´s native Mexico for a new adventure. “Like everything in this
universe, we are designed to have cycles – we are born, we become kids, teenagers, we start our adult living, we die – during all that process we have experiences, at every stage of life, we need cycles to keep evolving and learning,” says Schärer, reflecting on this new cycle, that is “rooted in the values we hold dear to our hearts – at its core is a love story. The Spanish word semilla means seed. This word has been a powerful north star in guiding our vision and values. A seed is something that you nurture and love – it blossoms right before your eyes into something extraordinary yet unbelievably simple.”
“The Spanish word semilla means seed. This word has been a powerful north star in guiding our vision and values. A seed is something that you nurture and love blossoms right before your eyes into something extraordinary yet unbelievably simple.”
Extraordinary yet simple is a true portrait of the spaces they have created on the Mexican coast. From the start, it was imperative to “create a place that lived in harmony with nature and provide the experience of living inside the native beauty of the area.” To that end, landscape architect Sr. Wolf, a local German-Mexican expat who has called Riviera Maya home for over thirty years and who “shares our deep passion for conservation,” was brought in to structure the properties around the existing biodiversity and trees whose seeds had fallen perhaps centuries before – a sign of “respect and embrace of all living creatures and the delicate coexistence in nature. From a tiny spider to the biggest tree.” Such conservation was paramount in designing the villa, preserving the sand dunes to protect their extraordinary life and incorporating existing trees into the design where, “beyond the dense mangrove, down a long dirt road you can find it: Soliman Bay. This is our secret spot, a place where we, as a family, spend lazy Sundays admiring the universe of sea creatures, marine vegetation and small jungle critters. It is a place where we can completely disconnect from our daily routine and reconnect with nature – people living near nature are more likely to become concerned about preserving it for future generations.”
Words: Brodie Duncan
Read the full story in the first edition of MATTER OF HOW.
Released June 2024.