Story | La Casa Amenities

It began with a sudden, mysterious and profound desire to travel to Costa Rica just before it became as wildly popular a destination as it is now. Responding to that desire led us to travel around the country
and fall in love with......
the incredibly rich natural setting,
     the gentle sweetness of the Costa Ricans we encountered,
          the plethora of vacant and beautiful beaches,
                and the mind-boggling diversity of flora and fauna.

When we made our way to the southern Pacific coast, we felt strangely at home.
In addition to the incredible seduction of the above-mentioned elements, in the village of Ojochal we found a blend of cultures which resulted in a community of multi-lingual folks, and a handful of globally-inspired restaurants taking advantage of local produce, tropical fruit and fresh-caught fish. Since we have traveled fairly extensively around the globe and deeply appreciate the enrichment we have received from cultural and epicurean encounters over the years, we knew we wanted to call this a second home.

We returned one year later to purchase some land, with visions of how our lives might evolve to allow us to be here more and more. We interviewed several sellers and found someone who was, like we were, interested in preserving and honoring the natural environment and wildlife. When he showed us this tropical forest/farm, we experienced a sort of magical rush, and we knew that we would become the guardians of this lush and verdant land. We loved the exquisite privacy as well as the vast views, and the community of trees, plants, animals, insects and birds.

Long ago, this land was populated by Native Indians, and the ridge on which this house now sits connected to other ridges via a trail they frequented. In our explorations of the land, we have found pillaged gravesites and broken pieces of pottery, along with other evidence of their long ago presence. In the 1950s, when the government subsidized cattle farming, it became a family-owned farm, and almost half of this primary-forested land was razed to grow cattle. More recently, in fact, just before we bought it, it was (thankfully!) rescued from a real estate development company that had just begun bulldozing to put in 4 official building sites.

As the proud new shepherds of this land, we were all three committed to sustainable living, and wished to build a house that used a minimum of precious natural resources. Friends of ours living nearby had created various sustainably-built homes in Costa Rica and Panama, and agreed to collaborate with us on ours. We went to work designing the house, and tossed around ideas about different materials we could use for the main structure. We finally agreed on earth bags, new to Costa Rica (as far as we know), but based on the one of the oldest techniques of building with earth used around the world. With this process, a mixture of clay soil from the farm, and sand was placed in bags and allowed to cure into hard, solid earthen blocks, which were layered to form walls, then reinforced with rebar. Once the walls were formed, they were covered with chicken wire and layers of earth and limestone plaster with ochre pigment for color. The completed walls are living and breathing, and contribute to a house that feels very much a part of the land on which it sits. It is as if we have sculpted the house out of the earth. Hence, La Casa de Tierra was born.

PURA VIDA! (this is what the locals say as a greeting- “Pure Life!”)

Lisa, David and Bart
Owners