Villa Diamante

Villa Diamante is in El Encanto, inside the gates of Punta Mita, on the Pacific coast of Nayarit. The house is detailed rather than decorated. Hand-crafted tile work turns up where you do not expect it, and the place reveals itself slowly, the way houses do when someone took their time over them.

Four bedrooms and five bathrooms hold fourteen guests, which tells you most of what you need to know about the rooms. They were laid out for families and for groups that travel together, and they are sized accordingly. The kitchen is fully equipped and open to the rest of the house, so cooking never becomes a separate activity from whatever else is going on.

Outside, the private pool anchors the living space and a garden closes in around it, green and thick and cooler than the air above it. Meals move outdoors early and mostly stay there. Breakfast at the outdoor table, something cold in the middle of the afternoon, a dinner that runs well past anyone's intentions. The four-passenger golf cart handles everything else: a run out to the courses, a group heading for the beach clubs, the small errands a week here tends to produce.

Premier Golf membership comes with the house. 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 access to Punta Mita's private beach clubs.

Air conditioning and high-speed WiFi are on hand, quietly, for the hours that ask for them.