Gamal Jadue Zalaquett remembers being 12 in Miami, his family having arrived from Chile, where the economics of the early 2000s had flipped their real estate fortunes.

“We lost pretty much everything,” Jadue Zalaquett says. “It was seven of us sleeping in one bedroom at one point.”

The American dream felt distant. But the boy kept it in view.

“I was gonna have an empire,” Jadue Zalaquett says. “Actually, my cousin reminded me of that in 2020. I had forgotten that.”

Forgotten amid a fast, busy rise that saw him start a marketing company when he was still in college; that saw him move and shake in the family property management business and the worlds of private equity, venture capitalism and tech before he turned 30, before 2020.

That’s when he found himself in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.

This is where Jadue Zalaquett intends to grow that empire.

His vision for Kosmos Stargazing Resort is set to softly launch this month — a luxury retreat near Great Sand Dunes National Park. Kosmos is a vision that Jadue Zalaquett hopes to take globally, expanding to destinations like the San Luis Valley, where the stars are famously unblemished for the lack of lighting across a big, open space.

First things first: overnights booked by backers of the $13 million vision.

They’ll stay in the first of 20 total villas anticipated by 2027, along with the planned stargazing center, spa and restaurant. The Kosmos website shows two villas attached to glass-paneled domes: one sleeping two to four people and another with double the capacity across two floors. Guests are being promised an “immersive stargazing experience,” complete with private telescopes, expert guides and hot tubs.

Also toward the end of April, a stargazing party is planned for any and all — anyone from Alamosa County and the surrounding valley who have heard about this “Disney World of astronomy,” as Jadue Zalaquett has called it.

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Maybe they’ve also read the headlines about the nightly rate of $700. Once fully built, Jadue Zalaquett says the all-inclusive package will be more than $1,000.

Providing for locals — stargazing parties and perhaps later a nonprofit, educational component — “is critical,” Jadue Zalaquett says. “Especially in a day and age where we see capitalistic greed take over. It’s important to show that some companies can have humanity.”

Locals have their suspicions, says Arlan Van Ry. He’s an Alamosa County commissioner and lifelong resident.

“The reaction around town, especially being a poor community, is, ‘This’ll never work,’” Van Ry says.

Another reaction, he says: ‘We don’t want those kind of people.’”

Those kind being wealthy outsiders. Van Ry says he understands the concerns, including those over dark sky tourism.

“When you have farmers and ranchers trying to keep watch late at night, especially during calving season, they need to have light,” he says. “For someone who comes from the city and visits and tells us we need to change that lifestyle because they moved here, that starts to make people upset.”

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What he also knows as a local business owner: “Economic development is what we need to survive,” he says.

“What I like about (Kosmos) is it’s targeting a totally different group of people than your normal RV park. … You never know what could happen when a billionaire comes and visits your area. They may fall in love with it.”

They may fall in love like Jadue Zalaquett did back in 2020.

Family and friends had previous land dealings in the valley — profit opportunities they saw in short-term rentals and larger acreage they could divide and sell. Jadue Zalaquett saw those opportunities. (Over the past four years, he says he’s purchased 1,300 acres as “leverage” for funding Kosmos, which sits on 40 acres he bought for $11,000.)

Compared with blurred night skies he had been living under in Miami and New York, he saw something else. “I kept saying, ‘Look at the stars!’”

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he’d been feeling “what I think is a trend now,” he says. “It’s people feeling disconnected in cities, and they’re looking for a connection. And I felt a connection in that remote place.”

He saw the Great Sand Dunes, saw the visitation there that had been rising to record levels. He didn’t see other resort amenities nearby — nothing of the sort he had known in his travels across 35 countries. Nothing of the sort his family had developed; The Zalaquett Group has overseen plush, beachside properties like the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Miami.

But would people come to the remote, desolate land of Kosmos?

Fewer people have been coming to the Great Sand Dunes. Visitation last year was marked at 427,661 — down from the record 602,000-plus in 2021.

Jadue Zalaquett has pointed to other numbers: A fundraising campaign selling the first overnights fetched nearly $2 million from more than 1,600 buyers. Kosmos has continued booking reservations. “We are pretty much booked out for the next year,” Jadue Zalaquett says.

The concept appealed to Nicole Walker, an enthusiastic stargazer in Colorado Springs.

She likes standing out in the cold at night, though not for long. And she certainly does not like camping. “I’m a little high-maintenance, a little bougie,” she says. “Kosmos was right up my alley.”

Jadue Zalaquett hired Walker to direct the astronomy tours, among hires he’s made between marketing and specialized construction using hempcrete. The biocomposite is center to his stated mission: natural, sustainable.

“I think for him, it’s really trying to bring people down to Earth,” Walker says. While also taking them beyond, she says: “You can leave the planet for a minute and see what else is out there. … I think that’s something that can actually ground us.”

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Other onlookers have seen Kosmos as a pie-in-the-sky idea. It was among several ideas floated during the pandemic.

The years saw a wave of applications for campgrounds through county offices. It seemed Jadue Zalaquett was far from the only one looking to capitalize on the area’s surge in dark sky tourism. This forced a moratorium on applications that continues today.

Many applicants did not account for sewage, water, electricity and other required infrastructure, Van Ry says.

“A lot of them never came true that were approved, just because of the fact I don’t think most people realized the cost,” he says.

He viewed Jadue Zalaquett differently — well-resourced with “a lot of energy.”

Construction is behind schedule, Van Ry heard. “But I think he’s gonna pull it off. He’s put a lot of money and a lot of thought into this.”

And a lot of dreaming.

“Since I was a little kid I wanted something big to happen in my life,” Jadue Zalaquett says. “I think this is it.”