The Spa Project

Rancho La Puerta, founded by Edmond and Deborah Szekely, is the original destination fitness resort and spa — family-founded, -owned and -operated. Today’s guests enjoy the very best resort spa experience, shaped by expertise developed over 65 years. Each week, some 150 guests share 3,000 acres of mountains and meadows beneath 3,885’ sacred Mount Kuchumaa. In this paradise for nature-lovers, walkers, and adventurous hikers, the private acres of rolling terrain afford each guest a plethora of panoramic sights, challenging trails (beginner to advanced), and an expansive feeling of freedom and well-being.   But hiking is just the beginning. A fitness progr...

Rancho La Puerta, founded by Edmond and Deborah Szekely, is the original destination fitness resort and spa — family-founded, -owned and -operated. Today’s guests enjoy the very best resort spa experience, shaped by expertise developed over 65 years.

Each week, some 150 guests share 3,000 acres of mountains and meadows beneath 3,885’ sacred Mount Kuchumaa. In this paradise for nature-lovers, walkers, and adventurous hikers, the private acres of rolling terrain afford each guest a plethora of panoramic sights, challenging trails (beginner to advanced), and an expansive feeling of freedom and well-being.

 

But hiking is just the beginning. A fitness program led by a team of expert instructors features more than 60 different classes per week, including yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, strength and conditioning, NIA, Fit Ball, and water aerobics. Tennis and other sports are popular activities.

 

The Ranch’s landscaping is world-renowned. Casitas nestle into a botanical palette of perennial-blooming native plants, sycamores, oak woodlands, wildflowers, and granite boulder outcrops covering almost half of a square mile. Year-round and migratory birds frequent the oasis-like grounds to the extent that Audubon Society groups consider it a birder’s paradise.

 

The spa’s own organic farm provides a talented culinary staff with ample fruits and vegetables for the freshest meals possible. Its Mexican-Mediterranean cuisine has been celebrated by Gourmet magazine: the Ranch calls it “modified vegetarian,” and it is rich in low-carb, low-fat essentials that make it compatible with most popular diet regimens today as well as an active week of exercise and relaxation. Fresh fish from the seaport town of Ensenada is a daily mainstay.

 

A new culinary center, La Cocina Que Canta, opened in September 2007. Literally “The Kitchen That Sings”, this 4,500-square-foot layout comprises a large hands-on classroom/kitchen, cookbook library, and culinary gift shop -- all set in the heart of the spa’s famous 6-acre organic farm “Tres Estrellas” (Three Stars). Guests can harvest their vegetables and learn how to cook healthily.

 

Personal services at the spa’s three health centers include a wide range of massages, facials, herbal wraps, and body treatments. Evening programs feature noted speakers, authors, adventurers, physicians and other luminaries.