Naples family focuses on sustainability, eco-adventures and custom teak furniture

Two decades ago, Henk Morelisse reforested a depleted pineapple plantation in Costa Rica with 700,000 seeds and seedlings. Today it is the 4.25-square-mile Cinco Ceibas Rainforest Reserve and Adventure Park, bringing visitors closer to nature and creating a source of sustainable teak for the family’s custom BouTeak by JM furniture boutique in Naples.

Henk and his wife, Jackie, have lived in Naples for 31 years. She is the creative director of the Cinco Ceibas resort and an artist who designs custom furnishings that are made by artisans at Cinco Ceibas. One of their two daughters, Micha, a co-owner, runs BouTeak side-by-side with her mother as the showroom manager. 

After scouting five years for property, Henk jumped at the bank foreclosure on the Finca Pangola property that was being traipsed by unauthorized cattle, wildlife and lumber poachers. 

“It was like the Wild West,” he says. 

More:The team saving Florida's native plants

More:A guide to planting Florida's native plants

The property is a biodiverse home to both common and endangered species, including green and scarlet macaws, tapir, three species of monkeys, poison dart and red-eyed tree frogs, and jaguar, and verdant flora.

“The focus was reforestation, to replant the trees and let them grow in value, like an annuity,” explains Henk, 58, a long-time real estate investor and seller. “You’re doing something that enhances the environment, not detrimental. We have done a lot of preservation and enhanced the environment tremendously, so a lot of species came back. It’s night and day.”

More:Collier to turn Gore sanctuary into permanent preserve

Rustic rainforest resort

Cinco Ceibas was named for five old-growth ceibas trees on the property. One was so large, Jackie explains its girth is equivalent to 40 people holding hands with arms outstretched to wrap its diameter. They estimate it could be 500 years old, and the resort’s mile-long boardwalk — said to be Central America’s longest elevated boardwalk through primary rainforest — goes around it. Henk worked with officials to obtain private reserve status from the National System of Conservation Area.

There are a few “simple but cute” cottages (former farmhouses) on the property for overnight lodging, which can be rented for one-, three- and five-night stays or customizable retreats for groups of four to 12. Five-day yoga retreats are available that include organic spa treatments, meditation, massage and locally sourced meals and juices prepared in the open-air Cinco Fusion Café. Jackie says the cottages are booked for family vacations, research, honeymoons, eco-adventures and photo expeditions. For overnight or day visitors, activities include horseback riding with views of volcanoes, kayaking the Rio Cuarto, boardwalk strolls and old-fashioned oxcart tours. 

There is an on-site chef. Jackie says the fare has a focus on local dishes fused with Thai or Indian flavors, and the cuisine can be tailored to visitors’ desires or lifestyles: vegan, family-style, gourmet, themed, detox or formal. “We work together with them to customize their retreats,” she says. The café and lounge serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as coffee, tea, natural juices, smoothies, water, Coca-Cola products, beer and wine. 

Jackie, 52, earned a skincare license five years ago, and designed and developed the resort’s wellness program. Yoga, spa treatments and massages take place in a large, open-air pavilion with outside shower. Jackie developed the facials, wraps and scrubs created from local ingredients. 

The café, yoga pavilion and a lounge area overlook the Rio Cuarto. There is no air-conditioning, but the temperature is naturally regulated and screening allows fresh air into the cottages, which do not have televisions, though Wi-Fi is available at the café and lounge. 

“It’s a destination; you’re there for a reason. There are only 300 people that live in the area. We want to keep the cultural identity,” Jackie says. “We’re not putting an American or European hotel there.”

From ‘seed to boutique’

BouTeak by JM on Tamiami Trail North in Naples isn’t packed with the furnishings made on-site at Cinco Ceibas, because custom pieces are typically made to order. Jackie works with designers, architects or homeowners to create a design concept for architectural features, such as beams, wall units and shelves, and furniture pieces, such as matching headboards and nightstands, and coffee tables.

Jackie was a volunteer set and costume designer for The Naples Players at Sugden Community Theatre for 11 years beginning in the late 1990s, took a hiatus, and has recently returned. Her BouTeak accents are on display on the theater’s lobby bar tops. These days, she also creates a large painting that reflects each production, and it hangs in the lobby for premieres. Half of the sale proceeds are donated to the nonprofit theater group. Jackie, who has worked in interior design and was privately mentored in painting by a retired art professor from the Rhode Island School of Design, creates each play painting in a different style. 

“It looks like a different artist painted them, so it’s fun,” she says. If they don’t sell, the paintings go on display in the BouTeak showroom. 

“I’m always working on a painting,” Jackie says. Working in the theater realm has been her “art capital,” she says, before turning to teak designs.

Teak is prized for its striking grain and durability. Thousand-year-old beams still hold up in temples and palaces in India and other parts of the world, and it has been used in building ships, bridges and blinds and louvres due to its dimensional stability. At Cinco Ceibas, there are two master craftsmen who are assisted by helpers. Henk, who is originally from Amsterdam and earned a degree in horticulture, says teak trees that he planted are hand-selected to be culled. A former barn/pineapple packing plant onsite has been converted into the woodworking factory. He imported a sawmill and three driers — wood needs to be cured up to 10 months depending on species and thickness — from the United States.

Jackie calls their interior pieces as “seed to boutique,” noting that BouTeak stands apart due to its promotion of sustainability, handcrafted workmanship and unique customization. “Everyone can get anything on the internet, but it’s mass-produced. It’s not sustainable like ours or handcrafted. Where the wood comes from is very important. These trees were planted for this. This is a global issue.”

Get details at cincoceibas.com and bouteakbyjm.com.

More:Healthy lifestyle starts with non-meat diet, says animal rights advocate