| Games's Baja Home |
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Page 1 of 2 On a remote stretch of Baja's east cape, Steve Games has built the desert oasis of his childhood dreams
 FIND YOUR HACIENDA ALONG THE SEA OF CORTEZ > As development continues to boom along Baja’s southern tip, more and more Americans are building vast homes from Cabo San Lucas north to La Paz, a 150-mile-long stretch known variously as the Gold Coast or the E... This oasis on the Sea of Cortez to which we were headed belongs to Southern California developer Steve Games. Casa de los Sueños—the house of dreams, as he calls it. But for now, I couldn’t imagine anything alive—save the bone-thin cow we had just whizzed past—at the end of this corrugated-sand road. We crested one last hill and suddenly there it was, Games’s estate rolling down the hillside to the sea. Giant wooden gates, straight out of Jurassic Park, slowly swung open to reveal a 15-foot-high waterfall surrounded by palm trees. Atop the cascade, like one of those Acapulco cliff divers, stood a solidly built man, all ruddy-cheeked and sunburned, wearing floral swim trunks and a wide grin. He looked a bit like former ABC sports broadcaster Keith Jackson in his prime. This was, of course, Steve Games, the 59-year-old king of California residential real estate. (He founded Prudential California Realty and was its president and CEO until selling the company to an affiliate of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2002.) The pool he was standing over is one of six on this private sprawling complex. Lushly landscaped with date and citrus trees, the property is home to three guest casitas and five villas—including the Casa del Abuelo (built for his father) and Casa de Marcela (for the nanny)—as well as Games’s principal residence, all separated from the periwinkle bay by a palm-tree-shaded stretch of sandy beach and a 185-foot-long infinity pool. |