Luxury Villa Featured in Architectural Digest

Enjoy Valle de Bravo from our 6000-sqft villa, Casa Cantil. My wife is the architect and we built the house as a labor of love for our own use. It has five spacious bedrooms each with its own full bathroom, cozy lounge areas, 3 fireplaces, an infinity pool with outdoor dining under a pergola, and the best view in town -- a 210-degree sweeping view of the entire area. It's full of high-end details: Bose home theater, Sonos sound system, and luxury bedding (with ironed cotton linens and goose down pillows, featherbeds, and duvets). It's more than a house rental ... think of Casa Cantil as a private boutique hotel with daily maid/turn-down service, Mexican breakfasts served with fresh fruits and freshly squeezed juices, plus exquisite four-course gourmet comidas with ingredients from the farmers' market. Our guests all rave about the food and hospitality (see our reviews). In less than 10 minutes you can walk down the hill to Valle's Zocalo, shops, and restaurants. Although Valle offers lots of attractions, most guests rarely leave the property. They just relax, enjoy the view, and get spoiled by our attentive staff. Hablamos español. Valle de Bravo -- Eco-Tourism Capital of Mexico: Valle de Bravo is known for its outdoor activities: paragliding, mountain biking, hiking, sailing, horseback riding, motocross, golf, and water-skiing. Right behind Casa Cantil is Monte Alto, a nature preserve with some superb running trails. In town you can rent mountain bikes (with or without a guide), motorboats and sailboats on the lake, and horses and ATVs. From November to March, 300 million monarch butterflies converge in the nearby sanctuary (in fact, the air is so thick with butterflies that a park ranger is stationed at the outskirts of town to slow traffic). We have a pool that can be heated for a fee. There is a colorful open-air market with fresh produce every day and an artisan market. In the summer dramatic thunderstorms sweep in across the lake in the late afternoon. The weather is comfortable and warm year-round. You can lie out in the sun and swim in the pool year-around, and yet it is cool at night, ideal for lighting fires and sleeping. Valle de Bravo -- a paragliding Mecca: Valle de Bravo is world-famous among paragliders and hangliders for its thermals and spectacular views (Valle hosted the 2009 FAI Paragliding World Championships). You do not need any experience to enjoy this sport as they can send you out on a piloted tandem jump with a professional instructor -- my 67-year old mom jumped for the first time this way. At 1pm she called Fly Mexico (one of the local outfits) and by 3pm she was floating over the town. It cost about US$100. There are several golf clubs: Club de Golf Avandaro, Rancho Avandaro, Izar, and El Santuario Golf and Spa Resort. Valle hosts music and art festivals and sporting competitions throughout the year which draw local and international visitors. Getting to Valle de Bravo: You don't need a car to visit Casa Cantil, especially since we are walking distance to everything in town. Valle itself is a 2-3 hour drive west from Mexico City (MEX). Some of our guests like to combine a trip to Valle with a guided sightseeing tour of Mexico City and the Teotihuacan pyramids, or take advantage of the proximity to Toluca's regional airport to mix in a few days at one of Mexico's famous beach resorts (a two-hour flight from Toluca will get you to Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, or Los Cabos). San Miguel de Allende is a four-hour drive.