Villa Buena Vida

Villa Buena Vida is new to the collection, and it still has the particular clarity of a house that nobody has had time to rearrange. It stands in Porta Fortuna, one of the communities inside the gates of Punta Mita, the peninsula that reaches into the Pacific on Mexico's Riviera Nayarit, and it looks out toward the ocean. The name is a claim, and the house is willing to defend it.

Four bedrooms and one additional suite, with five bathrooms, hold eight guests. That leaves a room in reserve, which is the kind of margin that turns out to matter: somewhere for children, for grandparents, or for whoever wants a little distance from the rest of the house at night. The gourmet kitchen is finished for people who actually cook, and the design is recent enough that everything still works the way it was drawn.

The private pool and the ocean view do most of the work. Mornings start slowly. The afternoon comes down to a choice of shade. Between November and March, humpback whales move along this coast, which gives the water a second thing to watch. The six-passenger golf cart is parked outside for everything else: the courses, the beach clubs, an evening that begins somewhere other than home.

Premier Golf membership comes with the villa. It opens both Jack Nicklaus Signature courses, including the Pacifico's hole 3B, the only natural island green in the world, reached by boat when the tide allows. The membership also covers the practice facilities, the clubhouse, and Punta Mita's private beach clubs.

Air conditioning and high-speed WiFi are here when the day calls for them, which is rarely before dark.