Atellier

A hill road climbs out of Playa Hermosa, and about a kilometre up, the jungle closes in on both sides before giving way to the ocean. The house sits right there, at the edge of the canopy. Its walls slide open, and once they do, there’s no clear line left between inside and out, only the Pacific below and green on every side.

Inside, the house is built around light and shadow. Rooms are spare and polished, and the roof carries its own garden of jungle planting, so the canopy seems to carry on overhead. Three bedrooms each have their own bathroom and air conditioning. The living space and kitchen open onto a garden terrace and an infinity pool that looks straight out to sea.

The villa is one of a small group on the same grounds, and guests share a wider set of facilities: a massage spa, a sauna with cold plunge, a fitness centre, a water slide and an indoor playroom children tend to disappear into for hours. Privacy at the house itself stays intact. A villa manager is on call, with security and maintenance staff on site.

For larger groups, it can be booked together with the main villa next door, a five-bedroom house sleeping ten. Together they take up to sixteen guests across two separate homes, each with its own pool, so everyone shares the setting without sharing every room.

This is a quiet place, and it’s meant to stay that way. The neighbourhood keeps quiet hours from 9pm, and it isn’t a house for parties or loud music. Hot water runs on solar, so it can take five to ten minutes to warm up and may come through lukewarm after a stretch of grey weather. The jungle here is genuinely open, too. Beds are draped in mosquito nets and insects are part of the arrangement. For guests who came for the sound of the forest at night, it’s an easy trade.