Inside Cuixmala, the Mexican Estate Where Kílẹńtàr Founder Michelle Adepoju Got Engaged

Michelle Adepoju, the founder and creative director of Kílẹńtàr, the Nigerian womenswear house that has dressed Tracee Ellis Ross, Naomi Osaka, and Victoria Monét, announced her engagement this week with a set of photographs and a video posted to Instagram. The news spread through social media like wildfire. For the Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree who made her New York Fashion Week debut to critical acclaim, only the best would do. The planning was orchestrated by Califano Productions, the London and New York destination planning studio behind Temi Otedola's Dubai, Monaco, and Iceland wedding celebrations. Photo: Michelle Adepoju via Instagram/michelleta_ Photo: Michelle Adepoju via Instagram/michelleta_ While the proposal made the headlines, the Mexican estate where it happened is worth its own attention. Cuixmala is not a hotel in the conventional sense. It is a private estate on Mexico's Pacific Coast, built by a billionaire for himself and his famous friends, then opened to the public by his daughter. Most people have only discovered it through private photographs of others who have been there. The story starts with Sir James Goldsmith, a Franco-British billionaire tycoon turned environmental activist who purchased the land in 1987. By 1989, he had completed his house and the guest bungalows, and it took two years and two thousand workers to build the magnificent domed Moorish beachfront castle. The name Cuixmala is a pre-Hispanic word meaning "the resting place of the soul." For years, the exotic private hideaway hosted Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and other members of the international power set. When Goldsmith passed away in 1997, his daughter Alix Marcaccini inherited the estate, opening it to the public as a luxury resort, at first only by word of mouth. She has said her father would never have wanted the place to sit idle. Under her management, the guest list widened considerably: Madonna, Mick Jagger, Tom Cruise, and Bill Gates have all stayed there. You feel Cuixmala before you see it. The main entrance is an unassuming, brightly coloured security checkpoint off Federal Highway 200 (Carretera Melaque-Puerto Vallarta, Km. 46) in La Huerta…