Puerto Vallarta Resorts: Casa Las Brisas

In retreat from a high-energy life building chic hotels and restaurants in North America, the affable Marc Lindskog moved life and work to a more intimate scale building his six-room villa-style Casa Las Brisas on one of the world's most beautiful beaches.

Heading northward from Puerto Vallarta airport to the northern tip of the Bay of Banderas, a short detour at Punta de Mita lands you on the outside flank of the bay at Playa Careyeros. Few footprints on the long, sugary beach that fronts Casa Las Brisas attest to its seclusion and exclusivity.

A wooden door conceals the entry courtyard and, once across the threshold, hospitality breaks forth in the eager greeting of two miniature Italian Greyhounds whose collective energies ebb and surge with the activities of the inn and its guests.

Guestrooms have private balconies with wonderful ocean views and surround the pool, which features submerged sunning chairs and a small fountain. Your own balcony is likely to be the chosen spot for morning coffee while you site whales and dolphins. Patios and intimate indoor-outdoor seating areas on varying levels beckon for an afternoon read or an evening cocktail.

Typical of Vallarta-style architecture and design, Casa Las Brisas has white stucco walls, tile floors and patios, thatch and tile roofs and guayaba wood balcony detailing. Interiors are simple and elegant, with touches such as hand-cast crown moldings. Carved armoires, headboards and doors from Michoacan add a rustic elegance. Bathrooms are a fiesta in themselves with immense showers lined with hand-painted tiles. Colorful, whimsical paintings and fine ornaments show the owner's artistic sensitivity.

Food at Casa Las Brisas is a passion and so well-executed is the menu this is one resort where guests are happy the formula is inclusive of meals. It's a pleasant event to have the menu cited by your hosts — perhaps the chef himself — as each meal is a daily surprise.

Activities center around the privileged natural setting with the surrounding jungle and rivers a haven for hiking and bird watching. Everyone marvels at the ritual of the sea turtle release that takes place on this very beach. Or perhaps a marine outing is to your taste, with the nearby Marieta Islands a perfect destination for snorkeling, whale watching and bird watching. If doing nothing at all is what you choose, your hosts are expert at making that a pleasure.