THE WELL AT HACIENDA ALTAGRACIA

This remote Costa Rican escape features eight treatment rooms, a thermal suite, multiple ranchos for outdoor mindful movement classes and a healing garden to grow herbs to be used for house-made treatment muds. Our challenges lay in transforming a grandly-proportioned, highly formal space into a bright, warm, intimate, meditative space more reflective of its lush mountain setting. Rooted in connecting and communing with Pachamama, or Mother Nature, the abundant landscape of Costa Rica was brought inside with plants and natural materials. The vast square footage of the space was addressed by creating intentional experiences for a guest as they travel through. The central greenhouse-like hydrotherapy center features a heated tepidarium, vitality pools, and aromatherapy steam room, a sauna and recovery areas the rolling hills and treetop canopy from 45-foot windows. We imbued the space with warmth and brightness with new finishes and handmade elements. To make the grand proportions of the space more intimate, hammered copper planters were suspended from the ceiling at varying heights, with a selection of plants intended to spill over and hang down further. Large communal heated stone platforms made from Corallo Rosa marble and solid brass sit under teak canopies, draped with ethereal sheers.