CO Stargazing Resort Erects First Hempcrete Villa
Hempcrete walls have been erected on the first of 20 planned stargazing villas in a new 40-acre southwestern Colorado resort. Photo courtesy of Gamal Jadue Zalaquett
CO Stargazing Resort Erects First Hempcrete Villa
By Jackie Smith
The founder at southwestern Colorado’s Kosmos Stargazing Resort wants you to imagine gazing at the stars from your private viewing dome attached to a luxurious, healthy villa – made of hemp lime (or “hempcrete”).
Gamal Jadue Zalaquett, 34, founder of Kosmos in the San Luis Valley, calls himself a developer who aims to create “the most sustainable resort in the world.” The planned resort’s 40 acres in Alamosa County are situated next to a Dark Sky Preserve, close to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and surrounded by mountains.
“A star-gazing resort makes sustainability cool, and even sexy,” Jadue Zalaquett told HempBuild Mag.
Via crowdfunding, the company raised almost $2 million so far from more than 1,600 backers in advance bookings for stargazing experiences that range between $400 - $700/night. Each villa will be equipped with ”high-quality telescopes,” the company says. Jadue Zalaquett is happy to report almost all of 2025 is sold out and he’s booking for 2026. The master plan includes a planetarium, a spa, and a restaurant with locally sourced foods — all built with hempcrete. The plan also includes a greenhouse to grow food for the restaurant.
Artist's rendering of the Kosmos luxury domes from the inside. Photo courtesy of Kosmos Stargazing Resort
First villa goes up
This summer, Jadue Zalaquett’s company, Naturalia LLC, began construction of the first of 20 planned hemp-lime “villas.”
The walls of the villa are constructed with hemp-lime panels and wood.
Hemp building creates healthy environments for guests and reduces the carbon footprint, the founder says.
Star-gazing domes will be attached to each villa. Each will be powered by solar energy, and “using constructive wetlands to decrease the need for outdated concrete septic systems.”
Miami-based Andrea Merinsky, junior architect on the project, said she hadn’t encountered hemp construction before.
“It’s just a matter of actually trusting the material and building with it,” she told HempBuild Mag. “It’s amazing.”
Founder of Kosmos, Gamal Jadue Zalaquett, 34, dreams of bringing sustainable hempcrete construction to the San Luis Valley in southwestern Colorado. Photo courtesy of Gamal Jadue Zalaquett
Luxury Resorts and Family Connections
Jadue Zalaquett has a background in IT and was raised in the hospitality industry. Family members in the Miami-based Zalaquett Group Real Estate Investing and Consulting Service have developed high-end resort properties in Miami and Chile, according to the Colorado Sun. Jadue Zalaquett said he has traveled the world and stayed at many luxury resorts.
He saw the potential in the San Luis Valley as a place where people would “...come and disconnect from the heavy traffic, the urban stress,” he said. He said getting people to Kosmos is the first step in changing mindsets to sustainability.
The Valley is bordered by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east, the Sawatch Range to the north, and the San Juan Mountains to the west. It’s just a short distance to the Rio Grande Valley of Northern New Mexico to the south.
The night sky is a big draw in the area. For more than 20 years, tourists have flocked to the UFO Watchtower in nearby Hooper, CO. The Valley has been called “The UFO Hot Spot of America.” Kosmos will appeal to fans of both astrology and astronomy because, "some are interested in the science of the stars and others are interested in the impact of Gemini and the other constellations," Jadue Zalaquett said.
Jeremy Stephen of Evolve Construction displays hemp lime panels in the Monte Vista warehouse of Global Fiber Processing. Screengrab Courtesy of Gamal Jadue Zalaquett
Working with local hempcrete builder
Naturalia chose off-site construction with industrial hemp panels designed by Jeremy Stephen of Steamboat Springs-based Evolve Construction because they are the most eco-friendly. The panels were built nearby at Global Fiber Processing in Monte Vista, Colorado.
Building panels offsite saves time, eliminates waste and doesn’t “interfere with the ecosystem as much” as on-site construction, Jadue Zalaquett said. Plus, making panels allows the crew to build during the Colorado winter. Hemp hurd for five villas and employee housing has already been sourced.
Stephen and his crew built hemp panels with R24/30 thermal envelope walls and R60 ceilings. They have been designed to be perfect for star-gazing in comfort on clear frigid winter nights in the Valley, the company says.
Stephen told HempBuild Mag his statistics on other hemp builds report “an average of 60 - 65% reduced heating and cooling costs.”
Artist's rendition of the 40-acre Kosmos resort. Image courtesy of Gamal Jadue Zalaquett
Part of larger development in the San Luis Valley
Recently, Jadue Zalaquett’s Naturalia acquired an additional 900 acres in the San Luis Valley. A sister company, Own a Piece of Colorado, plans to supply “...sustainable, modular, affordable housing” to the San Luis Valley, also insulated with hempcrete, he said.
In December, 2024 Jadue Zalaquett will present his sustainable vision for those acres at the Alamosa County Commissioners meeting.
Jadue Zalaquett’s goal is to create sustainable subdivisions using “clusters,” maximizing the natural landscape with solar power and well for each cluster, creating the least amount of disturbance to the ecosystem.
Naturalia will build a hemp-lime manufacturing facility in the Valley to supply local sustainable custom home-building. Jadue Zalaquett says he’s bringing in hemp-building experts to train “our own local workforce.”
Naturalia LLC is creating local jobs and is excited to “continuously adopt sustainable building practices and partnering with those that have the knowledge to change the world of construction,” Jadue Zalaquett said.
The founder of the Kosmos Resort wants the San Luis Valley to shine as the location of the “most sustainable subdivision in the world,” he said. Jadue Zalaquett sees the Kosmos Stargazing Resort as a stepping stone for sustainability. “Kosmos is built out of hemp. It makes sustainable building cool,” he said.
“People come to a star-gazing resort that’s fully sustainable and that gives them ideas. If this guy can do this, I can too. And if I can do that, why not another step on the sustainability path, and another?” he added.
The first Kosmos villa underway in San Luis Valley, CO. Photo courtesy of Gamal Jadue Zalaquett
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