El Monte Sagrado

High Country Magazine

By Denise M. Spranger

Driving through the archway of El Monte Sagrado, your old paint-chipped Honda Civic transforms itself into a gleaming stretch limo. Or at least you think it does. Similar fantasies play havoc with your identity as you enter the towering, sun-pierced lobby. Are you Gloria Estefan? Emilio Estevez? Or perhaps you’re one of the other celebrities who has recently graced the halls of this less than three-month-old resort.

Well, before you start signing autographs for the hotel staff, you might want to consider why all this luxury can be found just three blocks east of Taos Plaza. It’s the ecology, stupid. Or to put it more gently, you happen to be standing in a highly functional and innovative model of sustainable living.

Beside the massive aquarium that divides the Anaconda Bar from the De La Tierra restaurant, Tom Worrell sits at a table sheltered by palm fronds and banana trees. Wearing faded jeans and slightly scuffed cowboy boots, he could pass for any number of guests sipping coffee after a late morning breakfast. In fact, he’s the guy who dreamed this all up.

“Basically, we’re in the environmental business,” he says, “The products that we make are a series of Living Machines® that are water recycling systems and waste treatment plants. But we don’t use any chemicals–we do it with botanical gardens.”

Designed by Dharma Living Systems–a company founded by Worrell to develop cost-effective and ecologically sound ways to recycle and treat water–such Living Machines® allow El Monte Sagrado to achieve an impressive level of self-sufficiency. Currently, the resort is 60-percent geo-thermally heated and cooled and operates with a water recycling rate of nearly 100-percent. Already recycling a third of the organic waste generated on the premises, the resort’s “five-year goals” include plans to change that figure to 100-percent. Worrell also hopes to eventually produce at least as much “green power” as the resort requires–through the building of a “wind farm” on his property north of Taos.

“New Mexico has tremendous wind reserves and could actually be exporting wind power if they’d encourage it a little more,” says Worrell, “We have the land. We have the technology. It’s just a question of getting it done.”

Worrell notes that former Energy Secretary and current New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson–who attended the opening of El Monte Sagrado–has expressed interest in wind power development.

But what do wind power, waste treatment and water recycling have to do with an elegant 37-room boutique resort?

“The whole philosophy behind the hotel and resort is to show people,” Worrell explains, “Instead of preaching and talking about what’s wrong, we decided to do something. To become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.”

Ok. But why the upscale appeal?

“We built this place to show that you can live this way–in a whole different kind of way–without sacrificing luxury,” says Worrell, “If we want to make change and make it as rapidly as we can, we need to infuse this knowledge into people that can make a difference–whether it be through politics or simply because they have the resources to do it. The concept is a grassroots thing, but the implementation isn’t. And it takes both.”

Certainly, the former media magnate knows what it takes to get things done. Since his departure from the family newspaper empire, Worrell’s business ventures have ranged widely from historic preservation to the development of environmental products–while his philanthropic organizations have created scholarship funds, Buddhist educational centers and cultural programs for minority and immigrant children. In 1997, Worrell and his wife, Odette, founded the non-profit Yaxche Learning Center in Taos for grades K through eight–with a $10 million commitment from their Dharma Living Foundation.

Swinging a satchel stuffed with notebooks over his shoulder, Worrell suggests a “ten-minute tour” of the grounds.

“You have to see it to believe it,” he says with a grin, “And you have to see it to understand it.”

After so much discussion of the “nuts and bolts” of the resort’s ecological systems, it’s difficult to be prepared for the world beyond the hotel’s back doors. Spanning the waterfalls of a trout-filled pond, a curving pathway leads to adobe dwellings scattered beneath the trees. Worrell notes that behind their brightly painted doors, each suite is appointed with Native American or global themes–representing countries such as Tibet, Bali and Morocco. Encompassing a central expanse of green meadows and tall cottonwoods, these dwellings find sanctuary in a landscape threaded with rock ledges, cascading streams and “living swimming pools.”

“If you broaden your mind just a little bit, you can see how it’s like a village,” he says, “It’s even laid out that way. This hotel is actually a model for a town, a subdivision, a hospital or a school.”

As he approaches the natural greenery of the central open space, Worrell’s eyes light up.

“We call this the “Sacred Circle,” he says, “This is the center–the heart and soul of it all. This is what we ought to be paying attention to–instead of what man makes.”

Re-entering the main building, we pass under the glass ceilings of the “Rejuvenation Center,” where quiet rooms for massage, meditation and yoga accompany saunas, Jacuzzi and indoor pools. Worrell notes the absence of chlorine odor–due to the use of Curoxin®, an environmentally friendly chlorine substitute developed by Iasis Ltd., a company formed by Worrell in 1999.

Yet the tour is not complete. Through a glass door pale with steam, we gaze upon what appears to be a miniature rainforest but is, in fact, the Living Machine®. As ribbons of water descend into the shadows of lush leaves and sparkling pools, you forget that you are studying a complex feat of biological engineering. In short, a waste treatment plant never looked so good.

Worrell turns away from the spectacle, shaking his head.

“So much of corporate America has all the reasons you can’t do something,” he says, “Like ‘It costs too much,’ or ‘Only hippies do that,’ or ‘You’ve got to give up a lot of lifestyle to do it...’ Whatever. These are all urban legends that they’ve started. And they’re just not true. I mean, I’m a little guy compared to these huge corporations...I’m tiny. And if I can do it, they could have done it a long time ago. They just don’t.”

As we return to the sun-flooded dining room, Worrell pauses to share a last thought.

“We’ve grown up in a western culture that somehow decided to make war on our own environment,” he says, “It’s insanity. Because we’re part of that environment, not separate from it. It’s like fighting your mother.

“But hopefully,” Worrell adds, “we’ll become a model of how you can do it differently–of how you can develop without damaging the earth. I think if we get the word out, we’ll be off and running. And when I say ‘we,’ I don’t mean just those of us here at El Monte Sagrado, but we as human beings.”