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their former grandeur and turning them tifully up-dated, the past is still present. locals, had become an economic engine

into luxury hotels. The haciendas began Not just in the 17th century arches, but for the area’s three small villages. “We
to boom again, this time through tour- in the chimney and machinery of the consider it somewhat philanthropic,”
ism. former sisal factory and in the stone Dev said. So they turned Petac into a va-
foundation blocks that once graced cation rental getaway.
Today there are hacienda hotels scat- Mayan buildings. “We’re just sort of a
tered all over the Yucatan. Including Ha- place holder,” Dev told us. “It has such a Now the Sterns just make short visits
cienda Petac, there are at least a dozen history and the history continues.” and never in winter, the height of the
with within an hour’s drive of Merida. tourist season. “It’s a vacation spot for
They attract the glitterati as well as less Originally meant as a second home, the us,” Dev said. “We restored it with fami-
splashy tourists. Petac is coy about past Sterns began to rent it out “just to keep ly and friends in mind. It’s a nice place to
guest lists but did say it has welcomed it occupied.” Then they realized the re- reconnect. We spend a lot of time by the
Nobel laureates, fashion models, soap vived hacienda, with its staff of some 25 pool and around the dining room table
opera stars, four Michelin chefs in a
group of 12, and at least one rock star:
Peter Gabriel, who signed their guest
book.
Petac’s saviors were Americans Dev and
Chuck Stern. Long-time Mexico trav-
ellers, they were looking for a vacation
getaway when they got hacienda fever.
“We looked into a dozen haciendas,” Dev
told us over the phone from her home in
Houston. “We would see a chimney and
we would stop.”

Finally, after several years of hunting,
they spotted Petac. “Two things in-
spired us,” Dev said, “the fact that all ex-
isting buildings were in close proximity
to each other – many of the haciendas
are spread across roads, too spread out
– and the arches were stunning. The po-
tential was obvious.”

Or maybe not. There was little grandeur
left when the Sterns bought Petac in
2000. The buildings had crumbled; there
was no plumbing. “It was a moonscape,”
Dev told us. “Not a blade of grass. We
had to bring in dirt bag by bag to plant
grass. One room had a tree growing
through it. A tree had fallen across one
room in a hurricane.

“Thank heavens we didn’t realize what a
nightmare it was going to be to fix up,”
she said.
But by 2002, with the help of Mexico
City architect Salvador Reyes, Hacienda
Petac was once again a home. And since
then the updating and renovation has
continued. (“It’s never complete to me,”
Dev said.”) Today the 250-acre hacienda
includes six buildings with seven guest
suites, a library, bar, chapel, game room,
pool, fountains, gardens, spa and exer-
cise center and a new separate kitchen
building for cooking classes.

Best of all, even though it’s been beau-

86 Wine Dine & Travel Summer/Fall 2015