You Can Stay in a Tree House at a Cabo Hotel That Makes Its Own Mezcal
You don't need to fly 23 hours to Bali to spend the night in a tree house nestled amid lush, tropical palm trees. Acre Baja, in San José del Cabo, gives guests the opportunity to sleep among the palms in tree houses outfitted with king beds, terraces, and outdoor showers. The 25 acres on which Acre sits is actually the only land in the area where palm trees grow naturally, making the labyrinth (which founders Stuart McPherson and Cameron Watt call a "lush Secret Garden of palms") even more authentic.
The Los Cabos atmosphere is far from homogenous. The luxury hotels lining the Tourist Corridor are a completely different scene from the 22-year-old spring break energy found in Cabo San Lucas. Acre falls into neither category. Instead, the hotel represents a different side of Los Cabos culture altogether: the laid-back, artistic San José del Cabo vibe. The town of San José is home to some of the best up-and-coming culinary spots in the area, a Thursday night art walk, a local brewery, and charming boutique hotels. And a touch farther inland is one of the best food and beverage enclaves of San José: Acre.
Gina & Ryan Photography/Courtesy of Acre Baja
At the heart of the property, guests, visitors, and locals will find a farm-to-table restaurant and cocktail bar with modern (and extremely Instagrammable) design. The wild palm trees paired with colorful tile, exposed wood, and concrete accents create a sultry, Tulum-esque jungle vibe. The hotel's 12 tree houses opened in 2017 — nearly two years after the bar and restaurant debuted.
Gina & Ryan Photography/Courtesy of Acre Baja
"[The tree houses] were sort of an anomaly that people wanted to see," McPherson, co-owner of Acre, explained. "After people started to stay in them — they'd fly down for a weekend, stay in the tree house — the restaurant's name and brand developed a lot more. The pool was built by then, and there's a vibe here that people really liked. So, they're pretty much full all the time."
Gina & Ryan Photography/Courtesy of Acre Baja
McPherson and his business partner, Watt, who both hail from Vancouver, originally intended to open a boutique hotel with bungalows surrounding their picturesque mango grove. However, they wound up opening their restaurant and bar first, and the following it garnered, thanks to the food and atmosphere they'd curated, set the tone for their hotel. Not long after the restaurant opened in December 2015, McPherson and Watt decided on the tree house concept
Once the tree houses took off, the Acre business expanded further. They opened highly exclusive villas, which VIPs can purchase a fractional ownership stake in, and recently forayed further into the beverage world with the release of Acre Mezcal. Acre now has four iterations of their mezcal: a tobalá, espadín, tepeztate, and cenizo.
LA76 Photography/Courtesy of Acre Baja
"It seemed like a natural evolution for us to build [a mezcal brand] — to have this cool, unique hotel, and then have a mezcal that sort of complimented it," McPherson said. "So, we started going over to Oaxaca and interviewing farmers, talking to them, testing their product."
And so, their mezcal was born, and what started as an off-the-beaten path restaurant and bar transformed not only into a hotel and a vacation rental enclave, but into a mezcaleria as well.
