The Costa Rica Eco Villa From Zac Efron’s Netflix Show Just Hit the Market
The eco-villa that made Zac Efron rethink Hollywood is now on the market. And it’s not some staged set that got a sustainability makeover for the cameras.
This is Stephen Brooks’ actual home. The first house ever built in La EcoVilla. The place where Netflix filmed, and where a real family has lived the philosophy it preaches.
It’s listed at $1.095 million, and the details are worth reading before this blows up everywhere.
The Place: What La EcoVilla Actually Is
Most people who watched Down to Earth with Zac Efron thought Costa Rica was just a scenic detour. It wasn’t.
La EcoVilla is a 48-acre eco-community in San Mateo, Alajuela, about 850 feet above sea level, 45 minutes from San Jose Airport, and the same distance to the beach.
Residents from more than 25 countries live here permanently, around permaculture, shared farming, and regenerative construction principles.
Stephen Brooks founded it in 2012. This listing is his home, the first house ever built in the community, the one that demonstrated what the whole development was meant to be.
If unusual homes built around a philosophy genuinely interest you, you’ll recognize the same energy we found when covering what babyproofing a medieval chateau actually looks like, the most interesting properties are always the ones built around how someone actually lives.
Wait, one em dash slipped in. Clean version:
The Place: What La EcoVilla Actually Is
Most people who watched Down to Earth with Zac Efron thought Costa Rica was just a scenic detour. It wasn’t.
La EcoVilla is a 48-acre eco-community in San Mateo, Alajuela, about 850 feet above sea level, 45 minutes from San Jose Airport, and the same distance to the beach.
Residents from more than 25 countries live here permanently, around permaculture, shared farming, and regenerative construction principles.
Stephen Brooks founded it in 2012. This listing is his home, the first house ever built in the community, the one that demonstrated what the whole development was meant to be.
If unusual homes built around a philosophy genuinely interest you, you’ll recognize the same energy we found when covering what babyproofing a medieval chateau actually looks like.
The most interesting properties are always the ones built around how someone actually lives.
What $1.095 Million Gets You Here
The home is 3,391 square feet, on 0.61 acres, with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms on the main level. Built using bahareque construction, wet loam applied over an interwoven mesh of bamboo, twigs, and branches, with responsibly sourced tropical hardwoods throughout.
There are gnarled, unfinished wood beams running through the house, a broad terrace off the living room with panoramic mountain and jungle views, and a private terrace off the primary bedroom.
Natural rock from the surrounding landscape is incorporated near the dining area. A constant breeze runs through the home.
The lower level has a laundry room, a small bedroom, and a bathroom. On the grounds, Brooks also built a standalone guest casita of nearly 1,300 square feet with its own bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. Furniture is included in the sale.
The listing agent, Dawn Wolfe of Engel & Völkers Samara, describes the property as “like walking through a fruit forest” with mangoes, papayas, water apples, plantains, bananas, and a large pond where tilapia can be grown.
It has that same quality as Dolly Parton’s former California hideaway, a property with its own distinct personality that a very specific buyer will immediately understand.
Zac Efron’s Connection to This Place
In the 2020 Netflix series, Efron interviewed Brooks here, on this property, inside this community. In that same episode, he told co-host Darin Olien that Hollywood was “not conducive to a long, happy, mentally-sound life.”
He first visited Costa Rica in 2016, long before any Netflix deal. Returned in 2020 to film. Then came back again in 2022 just to relax in Santa Teresa with no cameras, no crew.
That pattern matters. Costa Rica clearly stayed with him. What followed, a move to Australia and a hemp eco-home currently under construction in the Tweed Valley, tracks directly back to the shift that started here.
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Why This Matters
The “Netflix effect” on real estate is documented and measurable.
According to a CNBC report on celebrity and film-linked property, luxury real estate agents estimate that homes tied to recognizable productions or names can command 5 to 10% above comparable market value, with some properties selling for multiples of their pre-exposure price.
La EcoVilla listings now explicitly market themselves as “featured in Down to Earth with Zac Efron.” That’s not coincidental. That’s a proven pricing strategy.
There’s also the community itself to consider. La EcoVilla has its own school, Real World School, whose curriculum is built around sustainability and real-world skills.
Weekly vegetable baskets from the communal garden are included in the HOA. This isn’t a lifestyle being performed. It’s been running since 2012.
We covered the same dynamic with Gene Hackman’s former Los Angeles mansion. A name attached to a property reshapes what people are willing to pay, sometimes well beyond what the square footage alone would justify.
Would you actually consider buying into a community like La EcoVilla, or does the off-grid lifestyle feel like too big a trade-off for most buyers? Drop your take in the comments below.
The Short Version
This is Stephen Brooks’ actual home, the founding house of La EcoVilla, a real eco-community of 48 homes in Costa Rica, documented on Netflix in 2020. It’s 3,391 sq ft, comes with a guest casita, fruit forest, and a pond. Listed at $1.095 million through Engel & Völkers Samara.
Foreign buyers can legally own property in Costa Rica outright with no citizenship required.
The celebrity connection isn’t the story. The community, the construction, and what this listing represents for eco-real estate valuation, that’s the actual story.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Build Like New does not represent the seller or any listing agent. Property details are based on publicly available sources at the time of publishing.
