Sacred Valley
Ten houses on a hillside in the Sacred Valley, near Cusco, Peru.
Ten houses on a hillside in the Sacred Valley.
In Tulum, our houses hide among the trees. In the Sacred Valley that isn’t possible: the mountains are too big and the land too open. So we borrowed what the Incas did to live on these slopes for centuries. We built in terraces.
The house steps down the hill on three levels. You come in through a narrow passage between stone walls, under a low ceiling, and arrive at a courtyard with a fire pit. Only when you reach the living room does the whole valley open up in front of you.
Four bedrooms, double-height ceilings and a living room that looks straight out over the valley.
A 109-metre hillside on the Maras plateau.
The land is 750 metres from Moray, the circular Inca terraces. It drops from 3,570 to 3,461 metres above sea level and faces northeast, which in the southern hemisphere means sun from early in the morning and light until late in the day. It’s the right slope for building in terraces.
- Highest point
- 3,570 m
- Above sea level
- Elevation drop
- 109 m
- Southwest to northeast
- Overall slope
- ≈14 %
- Of the hillside
- To Moray
- 750 m
- The Inca terraces, in a straight line
Topography of the hillside
From a digital survey of 23 hectares, with a contour line for every metre (WGS 84 · UTM 18S).
Distances in a straight line- Moray0.75 km
- Maras4.4 km
- Maras salt pans4.6 km
- Urubamba8.7 km
- Chinchero airport17.7 km
- Cusco34 km
- Thin lines: every metre.
- Thick lines: every 10 metres.
- Arrow: the way the hill slopes down.
Two hours from Machu Picchu. Twenty minutes from the new airport.
The Sacred Valley follows the Urubamba river from Pisac to Ollantaytambo, at about 2,800 metres above sea level. The mountains shelter it and the weather is mild all year. Almost everyone on their way to Machu Picchu passes through, but very few get to live here.
2,800 m
Above sea level. Sunny days and cool nights all year, so there isn’t really a bad time to be here.
12 million
Passengers a year expected at the new Chinchero International Airport, which is now 49.5% built. That’s three times what Cusco’s airport handles today.
Temperate climate
18 to 22 °C during the day. No hurricanes, no salty sea air and very little humidity, so houses age well here.
Six hundred years of history, on your doorstep.
Four snow-capped peaks, a river coming down from the mountains, and Inca terraces that farmers have been working for six hundred years. All of it is less than an hour from the house.
The mountain
The valley is surrounded by glaciers over 5,000 metres high: Chicón, Verónica and Sawasiray. People here call these mountains Apus and treat each one with respect, by name. Every house faces one of them.
Below runs the Vilcanota river. The Incas followed it to lay out the valley, and it still waters every field you see from the road.
Nature
There are queñua and molle woods, fields of the giant-kernel corn that only grows in this valley, and more hummingbirds than almost anywhere else in Peru. The air up here is dry and clean, and the sky is clear most of the year.
The gardens use only native plants: queñua, chachacomo, molle, kantu and muña. No lawns, and nothing brought in from elsewhere.
Valley photographs: Charles Gadbois (CC BY 3.0) · McKay Savage (CC BY 2.0) · Diego Delso, delso.photo (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Bernard Gagnon (CC BY-SA 3.0) · MorePix (CC0) · Martin St-Amant (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
One villa, with the whole valley in front of it.
Built in terraces, with materials from the valley and a high level of finish throughout. Each villa has its own title deed, its own entrance and full privacy. You can’t see one house from another.
4 bedrooms · double height
- Built area
- 425 m²
- Bedrooms
- 4
- Bathrooms
- 4 + ½
- Guests
- 10
- Plot
- 700 m²
- Edition
- Limited
Coming soon
More villas are on the way, with the same terraced design and the same finish. People on our list will see them first.
Come and see it for yourself.
A house in the mountains, with nature all around you and neighbours close by.
Get in touch and we’ll tell you which villas are still available.
Be among the first.
Leave your details and we’ll keep you posted as Consciente Sacred Valley is built.