A VIREZIA Selection
Robert Couturier · Oaxacan Coast · 2026
An AD100 architect returns to Mexico's Pacific Coast.
The first private residential project at this tier on the Oaxacan Coast — designed by Robert Couturier, the architect behind Cuixmala. Seven beachfront residences in Puerto Escondido.
The Architect
Robert Couturier
Paris-trained architect and interior designer. Based in New York since 1981. His work spans four continents — from Manhattan townhouses to estates in France, England, Russia, the Middle East, and Mexico.
Named to the AD100 — Architectural Digest's definitive list of the world's top architects and designers. Author of Designing Paradises, published by Rizzoli. Clients have included Sir James Goldsmith and Jeff Koons.
Published in
Las Orcas — Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca
1987
In the autumn of 1987, after the stock market crash, Sir James Goldsmith — the Anglo-French financier — withdrew from the world he had spent thirty years building. He bought twenty thousand acres on the Pacific Coast of Mexico and began to imagine what it might become.
He had recently commissioned a young French architect, newly arrived in New York, to decorate his Manhattan townhouse. He now offered him something larger: the design of an entire world.
Robert Couturier was thirty-two. The commission was, by his own biographer's account, the single greatest private commission of modern times. It would last a decade. It would expand to include a sixty-thousand-square-foot palace called La Loma, its blue-and-yellow tiled dome modeled after Hagia Sophia. A Boeing 757 — “a flying carpet with a motor,” Couturier called it. A French château. A double-width Manhattan home.
The estate became Cuixmala — “the soul's resting place” in the Nahuatl language. Architectural Digest later named it among the seven most beautiful resorts on Mexico's Pacific Coast. It hosted Henry Kissinger, Madonna, Bill Gates. It launched Robert Couturier's career.
Las Orcas is his return to that coast.
Robert Couturier on Las Orcas, Oaxaca, and his return to Mexico's Pacific Coast.
The full conversation is shared with members of the VIREZIA Circle.
“Luxury there is the ability to live simply, comfortably, with excellent food, with great services, with access to most pleasant things in life — and to have sort of a slow, peaceful life.”
— Robert Couturier
The Place
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca
Puerto Escondido began as a surfers' secret — a stretch of Pacific coastline known only to those who sought it out. It has since become one of Mexico's most compelling destinations: unhurried, culturally rich, and architecturally awake in a way that few coastal towns anywhere in the world can match.
Oaxaca's food culture — rooted in indigenous tradition, refined by a generation of internationally recognized chefs — is considered among the most sophisticated in Mexico. The coast itself remains uncrowded. The pace is slow. The light is extraordinary.
In the last five years, this stretch of coast has quietly attracted the greatest concentration of world-class architecture in Mexico: Tadao Ando, Alberto Kalach, Ludwig Godefroy. Until now, that architecture could only be visited. Las Orcas is the first opportunity to inhabit it.
The Oaxacan Coast — Puerto Escondido
Las Orcas
Seven private residences on a single beachfront parcel — four villas and three casitas, designed by Robert Couturier as a small village. “So that when you walk through from the entrance to the upper bungalows,” he says, “you have a feeling that you're walking through a small little city.”
The construction is in concrete and stone — materials chosen, in his words, “that will live in the sea air and age gracefully — as we all should.” Spaces are designed to be open but cozy. “You don't have the feeling that you live outside all the time. You have the ability to be outside, and the ability to stay inside and read a book.”
Each residence has its own private deed and rooftop plunge pool. Pre-construction. Pre-titled lots. Direct access to the uncrowded beach of La Barra. Seven residences in total — three casitas and four villas, ranging from two to three bedrooms. Five remain available to founding members.
From $561,000.
“What will distinguish Las Orcas is the care with which it was designed and built. Luxury but also simplicity.”
“Materials that will live in the sea air and age gracefully — as we all should.”
— Robert Couturier
Residences
Seven residences. Three casitas and four villas, each with private deed, rooftop plunge pool, and direct access to La Barra beach.
Casitas
Two-bedroom residences. Built area from 180 m². Land from 78 m².
Three casitas, two remaining.
Villas
Three-bedroom residences with two pools. Built area from 310 m². Land from 214 m².
Four villas, three remaining.
Residences from $561,000.
Detailed floor plans and pricing shared in the dossier with members of the VIREZIA Circle.
VIREZIA Selections
Las Orcas is part of VIREZIA Selections — a small set of curated opportunities selected for architectural significance, location, and the story behind them.
The Neighborhood
The Pacific Coast of Oaxaca has become, quietly, the most concentrated architectural destination in Mexico. Within thirty minutes of Las Orcas:
Casa Wabi — Tadao Ando. Pritzker Prize, 1995. With pavilions by Álvaro Siza, Kengo Kuma, Alberto Kalach, Solano Benítez and Gloria Cabral.
Casona Sforza — Alberto Kalach. La Barra.
Hotel Escondido — Grupo Habita. Member of Design Hotels.
Hotel Terrestre — Alberto Kalach. Solar-powered, member of Design Hotels.
Casa TO — Ludwig Godefroy. La Punta.
Until now, this architecture could be visited. It could not be inhabited.
Las Orcas is the first private residential project at this tier on the Oaxacan Coast.
The Coast
The Pacific Coast of Oaxaca runs for some of the most untouched coastline in Mexico — three hundred kilometers between Huatulco and Acapulco where the mountains meet the sea, with no high-rise development, no resort chains, and no immediate plans for either.
Las Orcas sits in La Barra — a quiet residential stretch east of Puerto Escondido's town center, removed from the surf scene of Zicatela and the bars of La Punta. The beach here is wide, walkable, and largely empty. The neighbors are private homes, not hotels.
La Barra, Puerto Escondido
“As we have more and more rarified access to the sea, it makes Las Orcas that much more precious.”
— Robert Couturier
The state of Oaxaca itself is a UNESCO World Heritage region with what Couturier calls “probably one of the most refined” food traditions in Mexico, a craft tradition older than the country surrounding it, and an hour's flight from Mexico City. Direct flights from Los Angeles, Houston, and New York are scheduled for 2026 with the expansion of Puerto Escondido International Airport.
The Build
Construction by Quantia, the Puerto Escondido studio responsible for Casa Sicarú and Casa Madrina. Materials drawn from the region — Cantera Verde stone, Parota wood, Talavera tile, breeze blocks — selected for permanence in the sea air. Saltwater pools. Whole-home water filtration. Ten-inch walls and dual-pane glass to soften the climate. Each residence is delivered with private deed under Mexican federal title.
Estimated construction: Q2 2026 — Q3 2027.
Founding Members
Five residences remain.
If this project speaks to you — whether as a personal residence on the Pacific or as an investment in one of the most distinctive coastal developments in Mexico — you can become one of five founding members.
Founding members select their residence from those remaining. They participate, where they wish, in the architect's final decisions on their home. They join a small group whose names will be associated with the project's first chapter.
A short conversation precedes any introduction. There is no obligation.
Become a Founding MemberA response within 24 hours.