Little was spared in perching the Hotel El Tecuán above its small kingdom of beach, lagoon, and palm-brushed rangeland. It was to be the centerpiece of a sprawling vacationland, with marina, golf course, and hundreds of houses and condos. Although those plans have yet to materialize, the hotel, unoccupied and for sale, still stands proudly, with an ambience more like an African safari lodge than a Mexican beach resort.

Masculinity bulges out of its architecture. Its corridors are lined with massive polished tree trunks, fixed by brawny master joints to thick hand-hewn mahogany beams. The view restaurant was patterned after the midships of a Manila galleon, complete with a pair of varnished tree-trunk masts reaching into the inky darkness of the night sky above. If the restaurant could only sway, the illusion would have been complete.

Getting There

The former Hotel El Tecuán is six miles (10 km) along a paved entrance road marked by a white lighthouse at Km 33 (112 mi/181 km from Puerto Vallarta, 22 mi/35 km from Barra de Navidad).