Part 4: The Dream Takes a Team

A founder is one person until she is two.

The day Ralia went from one to two is the day Ralia became possible.

The Marketing Role That Was Never Just a Marketing Role

The first official seat at the Ralia table was offered as a marketing role. Mya posted it. Desiree saw it. And what happened next is a pattern you will see repeat itself across every story in this blog.

Desiree did not apply because she needed a job. She applied because the role spoke to something she had been training her whole career to bring forward. Her marketing background was real and her toolkit was sharp, but what made her right for the seat was the alignment underneath the resume. She was already deep in Human Design. She was open to real estate as a place where a different kind of work could be done. She was willing to walk into a half built building and ask hard questions out loud.

Mya and Desiree found their through line in their first conversations. The question they kept circling, the one neither of them could answer cleanly, was the same one that still lingers in every meeting at Ralia today.

How do you decolonize real estate?

There is no clean answer. That is the point. The question is the work. Decolonizing means unlearning the unhealthy and toxic ways of being in relationship with land, with people, with money, with each other. It means refusing to repeat patterns that only ever served harm. It means building something new while you are still inside the old structure, and being honest about how hard that is.

This is not a side conversation at Ralia. It is the conversation. And it began the day Desiree said yes.

A Parallel Education in Costa Rica

While Mya was building La Maison Ralia in Montreal, she was simultaneously getting an unexpected education in modern colonization through Ralia's Costa Rica property. Operating a luxury vacation property as a foreign owner in a country with its own history, its own community structures, and its own relationship to outside capital meant that every decision had a mirror.

The Costa Rican team, led from the ground by Marian Paniagua and Dania Fallas, both now partners in the Costa Rica company, has been showing Ralia in real time what colonization looks like and what regeneration can look like instead. The team in Montreal is shaped by the lessons coming from the team in Costa Rica, and the team in Costa Rica is shaped by the lessons coming from Montreal. It is one ecosystem with two locations and a shared commitment to being inclusive and regenerative as core values. You can read more about this in our post on Conscious Travel in Costa Rica.

The Eco Cleaning Team, and Why We Built It Ourselves

When you start a hotel, the cleanliness of the space is not a detail. It is the foundation of the entire guest experience.

We could have outsourced. Most hotels do.

We chose to build the team from the ground up, and we did it for reasons that go well beyond logistics.

Traditionally, cleaners are the least appreciated and worst treated people in the hospitality industry. They do the work that makes the rest of the work possible, and they are often invisible inside the very buildings they keep alive. We were not willing to build a brand on top of that pattern.

There is also an energetic layer to cleaning that we take seriously. The vibration of the person doing the work, the formulation of the products being used, where those products come from, how they interact with the body of the cleaner who handles them every day — all of it matters. A guest can feel the difference between a room that has been cleaned and a room that has been cared for.

Cindy Charles came in to lead the team and crystallize what Eco Clean actually means in practice. Over the course of the last year, working with Cindy has been the process of clicking the team into who they have become: strong, skilled, and treated as the foundation that they are.

Kemverly's Story, and the Seat at the Table

Kemverly, who goes by Kem on our team, came to us through the eco cleaning program. She is Colombian. Newly immigrated to Montreal. Finishing her studies in early childhood education. She needed a job while she completed her degree, and ours was the one she found.

One thing led to the next. We saw her. She saw us. And when the moment came to open the Kids Club — an open doors gathering for parents with young children that we run every Sunday morning in our event space — Kem timidly agreed to step into leadership.

She lovingly cares for the project by creating activities, setting up the space, engaging with the kids, and making it a highlight moment for the children to have an interactive experience that the community can rely on week to week.

The Kids Club is not a revenue generator. It is something we give back to the neighborhood. A trust building exercise with our community. A safe space for children. The energy of play and fun coming through our doors every Sunday is a gift we feel as much as the families do.

Kem's story is the Ralia pattern in one human. She arrived through one door, was invited to the table, and grew into a leadership role that did not exist before she did.

The Line We Want to Hold

Kem, in one of her quieter moments with us, said something that named what Ralia is becoming. She compared Ralia to a parent. A parent who guides a child to grow up healthy and well, providing the safe space to learn, to make mistakes, and to become an adult. Ralia is in its own becoming as a business. Creating space to make mistakes that are not harmful to the entity. That, she suggested, is the key to business development that has been missing for so long, especially for people who have never been given that kind of safety to grow inside a workplace before.

Ralia provides the container.

What fills the container are the people and the experiences that are in alignment with the good of the community, for the betterment of the community, when that is the intention.

The team that has built Ralia from the ground up did not come together through job postings. It came together through resonance, recognition, and the slow knowing that happens when the right people find the right work at the right time.

Continue reading: Part 5 — How to Activate Your Experience

Start from the beginning: Part 1 — La Maison Ralia is on a Mission to Write itself into History