Sarah Livia, you were registered in México two days after you were born. The Ranch’s Mexican staff was your family. Mount Kuchumaa was your backyard. You spent hours watching tadpoles and lizards, rode on the bumper of pickup trucks, helped straighten nails in the warehouse. Most children grow up and leave home. You grew up and became the home. How did that happen?

I grew up in a pristine environment that was full of life- splendid night skies full of stars and seasons that each brought their unique gifts. Every spring, which was my favorite season, brought wildflowers, frogs, billowing clouds and rainbows, swallows and newborn goats. However, in my first twenty years, I saw the beauty and diversity of nature degraded; our dark sky faded as the nearby city of Tecate grew and the swallows no longer returned as the river became contaminated. I became acutely aware of how vulnerable our natural environment is and how quickly the web of life deteriorates. My love of nature and striving to protect our natural eco-systems is at the heart of everything I do.

Before you were twenty, you were already designing gardens at the Ranch. Before thirty, you had taught permaculture in Oregon, organized soil conservation programs in Nicaragua, and worked with human rights activists across Latin America. That is not the resume of someone groomed to run a spa resort. What were you actually searching for in those years — and how did you know that Rancho La Puerta was the answer?

I was raised by a village, and learned many practical skills as a child. I appreciated hard work and camaraderie. I studied landscape architecture at the University of Oregon when many young people were learning homesteading skills and experimenting with intentional communities. I discovered that I fit naturally into the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. My childhood prepared me to be a capable and strong member of various organizations and that education was just as valuable as my academic training.

I was seeking to find people that lived in harmony with their environment, and where children were being raised with earth-honoring principles. I did not expect to work at the Ranch while I was in college. I learned as much as I could about designing with nature and managing natural resources in a regenerative way. I was always happiest when gardening and creating beauty, so I was drawn back to the Ranch to transform the landscape into the gardens we have today.

In 1984 you planted the first seeds of the Tres Estrellas organic farm. That farm now feeds guests, inspires cooking classes, and anchors the entire food philosophy of the Ranch. But in 1984, Baja California organic farming was not a trend — it was an eccentricity. What made you certain enough to begin?

I was inspired by the many small organic farms in Oregon and California and went to England to study biodynamic agriculture. It was an extension of the ideals we lived by at the Ranch when I was young. In México the food system was becoming increasingly industrialized and chemical based and there were increasingly fewer local farms in northern Baja.

When my father died in 1979 and I inherited some land, I saw the opportunity to develop a small farm to educate and inform our guests and to provide our kitchens with organically grown produce. It was radical to be an organic farmer in Baja California at the time. It was hard to convince other members of my family, so I created Rancho Tres Estrellas on my own. I knew that it was the only way that we could begin to transform human health and remain true to our philosophy of health and wellness

Rancho La Puerta has been named the number one destination spa in the world by Travel + Leisure readers. Guests come for a week, leave transformed, and then return to their lives in Los Angeles or New York or Toronto. You have watched that cycle repeat for decades. What happens to those people when they go home — and what does Rancho La Puerta have to do with the life they return to?

We have incredible guest loyalty because transformation truly happens during a week at the Ranch. Our program is wholistic and very multifaceted. From first timers to Ranch veterans who have been coming to the Ranch for 50 years or more, they find what they need to reinvent themselves, or to recommit to their wellbeing. They take home new ways to eat, exercise and reduce stress in their lives while making new friends.

You rescued the Tecate River from being channeled in concrete. You run an environmental education program in 80 percent of Tecate’s schools. You have been doing citywide river cleanups for 20 years. The Ranch’s 4,000 acres include a 2,000-acre conservation zone. All of this while running one of the most recognized wellness resorts in North America. What is the relationship, for you, between the health of a person and the health of a place?

Human beings cannot be healthy in an unhealthy environment. The human community is not separate from the natural world. Along with clean air and water, and life-giving food, we also need beauty and connection with nature. It is our birthright to have clean water in our rivers, to wiggle our toes in the mud, and I feel it is one of the greatest tragedy of our time that we can longer find places on the surface of the earth where we can drink wild water.

You opened La Cocina Que Canta in 2007 — a culinary center inside a six-acre organic farm, where guests cook what they just harvested. That was not a standard wellness resort amenity in 2007. Where did that idea come from, and what did it change about how guests experience the Ranch?

We began teaching cooking classes at the farm in 1985, in a small kitchen. To be in good health we need to eat with the seasons and prepare fresh foods with healthy ingredients. By 2007, we noticed that there were many young people raised by working parents that were uncomfortable in a kitchen. To create a spacious kitchen and state-of-the-art cooking school was my mother’s idea. To site it at the farm was my idea.

It was a success from the start. I think that the kitchen is an alchemical place for creating community. We no longer prepare and share food together in the way we used to. In México the kitchen is definitely the heart of the home.

We were fortunate to have an excellent executive chef paired with a new cookbook for the launch. All of our visiting chefs are sent a list of the foods available at the farm and they adapt their menus to what is in season. In the past 20 years we have welcomed a great number of dedicated visiting chefs to add variety and keep our offerings innovative for our guests.

The Residences are designed as a village, not a collection of homes. A vineyard, walking paths to the mountain, shared gardens, communal dining, a juice bar, fire pits, a library. You have said that your goal was to create a village with all the ingredients to generate a community of like-minded friends. What did you learn from 30 years at the Ranch about what a community actually needs to form — and what kills it?

Over 85 years we have learned so much about community. We wanted to create a place that offered many of the unique qualities of a stay at Rancho La Puerta: freedom, spaciousness, diversity and friendship. We have learned how to create a safe and welcoming space where people feel valued and accepted regardless of their level of fitness, or their age. We did explore other places and other offerings in the world of luxury residences but we wanted the Residences to reflect the things people love about Rancho La Puerta, to be a bit more luxurious and contemporary but without sacrificing our authenticity.

I feel that being neighborly is an art. We are fortunate that the Ranch has gathered so many remarkable guests over the years who understand that sharing is important, that sacrifices can be made for the good of the community. Our era of separation, entitlement and autonomy can distort the qualities needed for building community and finding common ground.

You have incorporated a full-home water purification system, and 24/7 access to an onsite nurse. That is not luxury real estate — that is a longevity infrastructure. What does a home need to do for the body that a hotel room cannot?

There are many ways in which each individual Residence supports a healthy lifestyle. The interior spaces feature natural materials and lots of natural light. One of the gifts of being at the foot of our sacred mountain with sweeping views is waking into uninterrupted quiet and beauty. This gives our nervous system the calmness that it craves. We are blessed with a climate that allows nature connection and lots of time outdoors; the Residences are designed for walking. Our patios are spacious, with plenty of privacy, yet offer easy connection with neighbors and friends and what will be a lively program at the village center.

More than 60 percent of homes have already been sold. The buyers are people who have been guests at the Ranch — people who came for a week and decided they never wanted to leave. What do you think they saw at Rancho La Puerta that made them willing to make that permanent commitment?

Our guests have simply fallen in love with a place that helps them to feel happy and whole. Over the years, the Ranch has embodied a quality of kindness and a healing energy that is unique. It takes a long time to ensoul a place. We hope that we will be able to grow together with all the best of what we have learned, creating resilient gardens and friendships, enriching the local community of Tecate with our presence and enlivening each other.

Your parents founded Rancho La Puerta in 1940 with $17.50 a week per guest, a tent, and a belief that the body heals when given the right conditions. Eighty-five years later, you are building 108 homes on the same mountain. If your mother Deborah — who is still alive and still one of the most extraordinary women in Mexican wellness history — walked through The Residences today, what would you want her to see?

My mother would see a place that is true to its origins and in alignment with its founding principles of earth stewardship, wholistic health, altruism, generosity, innovation and leadership. I know that would make my mother happy.