Alta Hotel

Alta Hotel

Walk through Alta's front door in Escazú and you don't stop at a lobby, you keep going, past high-vaulted corridors, out the other side of the building, until you reach a huge Guanacaste tree marking the end of a lot so irregular that architect Rolf Ruge Moya designed the hotel to stretch from one street to the next to make it work. That kind of built-in story is rare among the boutique properties competing for this stretch of hills above San José: a 200-year-old stone fountain hauled from Mexico sits at the entrance, and the two fifth-floor suites carry the names Granada and Al Andalus in tribute to the Spain and Morocco that shaped Ruge Moya's eye. Twenty-three rooms across five floors keep the place small enough that the staff, who speak English, Spanish and French, learn names quickly. Rooms open onto private balconies with views over the Sun Valley or the gardens below, and days can run from coffee grown on the hotel's own Passghaleh farm ten minutes away to a sauna, steam room and outdoor pool back on site, with La Luz restaurant covering the rest. Poás Volcano, with one of the biggest craters in the world, sits half an hour away for anyone restless enough to leave. Couples marking an anniversary and business travelers finished with the conference hall will find what they need here; anyone wanting nightlife or a beach out the door should look to the coast instead, since Santa Ana sits inland. Built in 2004 and part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Alta reads less like a hotel than a particular house, extended just far enough to let guests stay in it. Twenty-three rooms above Santa Ana, built around an irregular lot that stretches street to street to a Guanacaste tree, with Moroccan and Spanish suites and coffee grown on-site. Not for anyone wanting nightlife at the door.