Interview: CO Hempcrete Stargazing Villa Welcomes First Guests

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Written By Jean Lotus

The first hempcrete off-grid villa at the Kosmos Stargazing Resort in Mosca, CO. Photo courtesy of Kosmos Resort

Interview: CO Hempcrete Stargazing Villa Welcomes First Guests

By Jean Lotus

Currently Colorado’s largest planned hempcrete project, the Kosmos Stargazing Resort, has welcomed its first guests in a 1,200 sq. ft. solar-powered off-grid hemp-lime (hempcrete) villa in the San Luis Valley.

CEO Gamal Jadue Zalaquett, 34, raised almost $2 million in crowdfunding to start the resort, which when finished, will be one of the largest hemp-lime projects in the United States. Jadue Zalaquett’s family has developed multiple large properties in Miami and Chile, and he left a technology sales job to move to Alamosa County, where building department rules permit hemp-lime.

Kosmos’s first villa is one of 20 planned on a 40-acre tract in Alamosa County near a Dark Sky Preserve and 15 minutes from Great Sand Dunes National Park. The master plan includes a mega-telescope in a stargazing center, a spa and restaurant with locally sourced foods – all built with hempcrete. 

The new villa is equipped with high quality telescopes, a jacuzzi and a geodesic dome.

Once the resort is up and running, an overnight stay will cost between $400-$700 per night and the resort is already booked into 2026, Jadue Zalaquett said. In addition, the company offers “immersive stargazing sessions” (now $10) where trained astronomers guide visitors with high-end telescopes to explore the clear night sky. 

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Setting up telescopes for stargazing at Kosmos near the new hempcrete villa. Photo courtesy Kosmos Resort

Jadue Zalaquett’s construction company, Naturalia Construction, LLC is building the Kosmos villas and has been approached to build other homes in the valley, with hempcrete.

The company has partnered with Ukrainian hempcrete expert and civil engineer Sergiy “Doctor Hemphouse” Kovalenkov of Hempire Holdings to train locals to build with hempcrete. Three other villas are currently in-progress. 

“This resort will help reignite the entire hemp building industry in the USA!" Kovalenkov wrote on social media. 

HempBuild Mag caught up with Jadue Zalaquett during the villa’s “soft launch.” The following interview has been edited for clarity.

HBM: You came from a hospitality background, but what drew you to hempcrete?

Gamal JZ: Well the first thing was, I needed a solution. I needed something to build with somewhere that was remote. Hempcrete provided the perfect solution because it could all be done with local materials and local labor trained by a professional. First I wanted to do containers and then I realized that containers are not that sustainable. After that, I learned about the health aspects of hemp-lime and it fit the theme of Kosmos so well. 

Not only does hempcrete provide the great thermal insulation, it provides also a healthier home, regulating humidity, allowing you to always make sure that there's no mold because there's no mold growing on anything that's alkaline. In Colorado, part of Kosmos is connection. Connection with the stars, connection with the family, connection with your significant others. Right? And, and part of it is connection with yourself and healing.

So it just made total sense to go with hemp as a healing plant because that's what it is as well. We came to it by necessity.

Finally, it goes with the whole innovation aspect of Kosmos because it's an innovative technology as well. We’re off-grid with solar power. The whole process has been a journey.
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HBM: Your construction company, Naturalia, is also committed to building with hempcrete and now southern Colorado residents are requesting hempcrete homes. What are the goals for Naturalia?  

Gamal JZ: I think it all unites under one mission, and that is to push forward, sustainable and natural. I'm keeping it vague, but we're committed to building, but we're also thinking how do we help make a movement out of this, and how do we help lead an industry out of this?

HBM:  Is it more complicated for Naturalia as a construction company to tell clients, “You can hire us, but we're gonna only build with hempcrete?” Are you willing to go to other natural building materials too?

Gamal JZ: We're willing to go to order natural building materials as well. Yes. Absolutely. It's clear that learning with natural materials is not easy. There is a science to it. The Romans did it perfectly for a reason because there were thousands of years that went into that research, and, look, they're still there! Our focus is going to be hemp because I believe that it's just a great product. And we also wanna get into materials consulting. Having said that, what we're focused on is bringing the cost of building with natural materials  down. We need to hone in one material, and that's what we do with hemp-lime.

The completed hempcrete villa at Kosmos. Three other structures are under construction. Photo courtesy of Kosmos Stargazing Resort

HMB: Tell me a little bit about the partnership with Sergiy Kovalenkov and his expertise? 

Gamal JZ: Sergiy is a consultant for Naturalia. He’s one of the top experts in hemp-lime worldwide. We're looking to continue partnering together, providing, and expanding, perhaps to form a global network of hempers.

HBM: Do you think the hemcrete will make Kosmos stand out as an ecotourism destination?

Gamal JZ: Well, it's absolutely going to be like a museum. Like, when you go house shopping and you wanna see what your house is gonna look like, your builder usually shows you houses that they built. Well, here, we're gonna show them  a resort of hemp houses. We want other people to see that they can build with hemp-lime too.

Not only that, when we're done by Villa 20, they're gonna be able to see the progress and how we were able to make every villa even more sustainable.

HBM: Okay. So you're iterating per villa.

Gamal JZ: Exactly. You know, we started with panels. We realized that was not the best way to build. And now we see that cast on-site has just proven to be the most effective by far. Okay. And not only that, we want to continue reiterating. We want to use Adobe floors. So you're literally working on you're literally walking on earth.

High-quality telescopes are available to guests who stay at Kosmos Stargazing Resort. Photo courtesy of Kosmos

Sergiy Kovalenkov (green shirt, front) conducts a hempcrete workshop at a Kosmos villa under construction. Photo courtesy of Natural Construction

HBM: Whats next for Kosmos and Naturalia? 

Gamal JZ:  I wanna be more than a construction company. We're gonna be helping the whole industry move forward. And that's how I see it, by promoting education. And so we’re planning a series of Hemp building tours in 2026 leading up to a big hemp building festival here in the San Luis Valley in summer of 2026.

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Jean Lotus
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