Ecovilla

It’s possible

Moving permanently to the remote countryside requires a bit more planning than booking an Airbnb for a week or two in the tropics. Ecovilla makes the dream possible. It’s a new way of sustainable living in eco-villages on regenerated land. It allows for a smoother transition into life in nature and is built around community and quality infrastructures and services on par with expectations of modern life.

How it’s done

By regenerating deforested land and growing eco-villages at scale, Ecovilla offers a revolutionary approach to construction and community with global potential. Sustainable places to live, allowing a reconnection with Nature, without sacrificing any of the facilities you would dream of in the big cities.

Entrepreneur

Our founders met Marcelo Valensi – Co-founder and CEO of La Ecovilla Original when they moved to Costa Rica during the Covid Lockdown. As a real estate developer with extensive experience in residential and commercial projects in the US and Latin America he has led and developed the global concept of La Ecovilla since 2012. Marcelo lives in La Ecovilla in San Mateo with his family. Seeing how lifechanging this lifestyle has been for them, Canel and Sebastian decided to launch the Ecovilla Group, building up the ambition to scale this lifestyle in Costa Rica but also throughout the world to bring people together and build new sustainable ways of living in the 21st century. The group’s ambition is to allow ten of thousands of people to embark with us in this new way of living.

Results

The company, created in 2012 by Marcelo Valansi, has been supported since 2021 by Canel Frichet-Lombardo and Sebastian Lombardo. The Ecovilla Group has three ecovillages in Costa Rica. The pilot project, La Ecovilla Original, has been in existence for 10 years. The other two developments are much larger and are rolling out the concept. It includes Ecovilla San Mateo (200 ha, 300 families, c. $33m investment, to be delivered in H1 2025). Now that our knowledge of land protection, sustainable development, and community building has been validated by our success in Costa Rica, we are expanding internationally (currently developing plans for Argentina and Europe). We adapt the model to the local specificities, and pass it on as open source, so that it can be used and improved by all.