Budget Breakdown: How a Globe-Trotting Couple Built a Hexagonal Oaxaca Beach House for $750K

Welcome to Beach Week, our annual celebration of the best place on Earth.  

Mark and Michelle Wilber love to travel, and they’ve let their passion for teaching, social work, systems thinking, and event production take them around the world to places like Vietnam, Peru, and the Galapagos Islands.

Their time volunteering and studying in Nueva Luz de Fatima, Peru, with the Shipibo-Konibo tribe made a particularly big impression—after living next to the tribe’s shaman, they felt inspired to build a home of their own rooted in spiritual practice. 

"We wanted life to feel like a ritual and ceremony," says Michelle, a teacher who is pursuing a PhD in philosophy, religion, and women’s spirituality. "We wanted to invite the natural world into everyday experience."

But the big questions was: Where would they build this retreat? 

After Michelle’s teaching stint in the Galapagos, the couple traveled to Mazunte, Oaxaca, on the recommendation of a friend. "We fell in love with the area," says Mark, a public health social worker.

They looked at 46 different plots of land before purchasing a .67-hectare property (along with .2 hectares across the street) from an expat. The dense foliage makes it feel remote, but a five-minute walk down a hillside staircase leads to the town’s main street, and it’s a 10-minute walk to the beach. The sounds of waves crashing against the shore and birdsong mix with the neighborhood sounds of chickens, dogs, and music. "There is no insulation from the reality that you are part of a community," Michelle says.