Though Rosy Rios and Doug Ancel of Reno, Nevada, knew they wanted to run a B&B in Costa Rica, they never intended to build one from the ground up. But that’s what happened on the way to their Hideaway Hotel, which opened in 2008.

First, they chose the place, driving the length of the Nicoya Peninsula, looking for a beach town with enough tourist infrastructure to run a business but without the overbuilding and overreaching that can spoil a place.

They came equipped, with backgrounds in business, real estate and construction, and a chunk of savings that would let them take a good shot at their dream. Rosy spoke Spanish, and Doug was learning.

Looking to Buy

Once they settled on Playa Samara, halfway down the peninsula and with a sweeping half-moon beach washed by waves gentle enough for swimming, they had local realtors show them what was on offer.  They looked inland, “in the jungle,” but it was too hot. Places in the town of Samara were “too noisy—roosters, cars, and chain saws,” says Rosy. And when they liked the location, the building didn’t seem right.

They remember that one realtor showed them a hotel, assuring them, “If you buy this, I guarantee you’ll make your money back in 5 years.” Being familiar with the ups and downs of real estate and business, Doug and Rosy knew that a realtor should never in good conscience make such assurances. They put their guard up even higher.

Howler monkey at the Hideaway Hotel, Playa Samara, Costa Rica; photo by Doug Ancel

One day, after months of searching, they turned off the coast highway onto a one-lane road that ran straight to the southern end of Playa Samara. Wouldn’t it be great, they agreed, to have a place within walking distance of the beach? But there were no hotels for sale on that road.

A little later, in April 2004, they heard through the grapevine that a German woman was selling a 1-acre parcel of land on the very road that inspired their ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ musings. It wasn’t listed with any realtors.

Doug and Rosy looked at the land and loved it. But it had no structures on it; their dream had been to buy and renovate an existing hotel.

The location, however, was perfect, and the price wasn’t half-bad. And so, after checking to make sure they’d have easy access to water, electricity, and phone line, and after some back-of-envelope calculations and late-night soul-searching, they decided to go for it. They did what most people moving to a new country or starting a business have to do at some point: change the master plan in order to accommodate an opportunity that may not come your way again.

Building a dream, from the ground up

Anyone who’s ever built a house or a hotel knows what comes next. It took Doug and Rosy a little over four years from purchase of property to opening the Hideaway Hotel in July 2008. I’m sure they could write a book about those four years, but here are a few high (and low) points.

Building the Hideaway Hotel in Playa Samara; photo by Doug Ancel

They knew what they wanted-a clean, contemporary design, high-quality construction to North American/European standards, and about a dozen spacious rooms. They wanted a pool, landscaped grounds, and a modern wastewater system that would allow them to irrigate the grounds with gray water and to give North American guests the privilege of flushing toilet paper instead of putting it in a waste container next to the toilet, which is the Tico style.

They got a good lawyer (key to getting anything done in Costa Rica), who introduced them to an architect who had a good reputation. “But he didn’t deliver,” says Rosy, so they set up meetings with several architect/ builder pairs, chose their favorite, and got to work. “The design process took some time,” continues Rosy “We wanted to be sure to choose the finishes, tile, granite, etc. ourselves.”

The permit process was also challenging. “We were held up in SETENA for 6 months,” Rosy says. “Apparently SETENA [the Secretaria Tecnica Nacional Ambiental] was backed way up at the time.”

“We were ‘next in line,’” adds Doug, “for a good 5 or 6 months.”

The web site costaricalaw.com explains, “the sole mission of SETENA is the administration of the process to review and evaluate environmental impact considerations. Builders and real estate developers cringe when they hear the word SETENA.”

“But our building permit didn’t take much time,” says Rosy. “You just present plans to the municipality and pay the fees.”

The pool before it was a pool at the Hideaway Hotel in Playa Samara; photo by Doug Ancel

Once construction got underway, Doug stayed on site as much as possible to oversee the work. The builder went over budget, and there were construction delays. But when the Hideaway Hotel opened its doors in 2008, it all seemed worth it. “Local realtors couldn’t believe it,” says Doug. They said, ‘You guys actually opened! So many projects end up unfinished ruins.’”

Their hotel is indeed no ruin; it’s a lovely place with the sort of amenities you really appreciate after having been on the road for while, from the spacious shower to the mini-fridge to blackout curtains for the times you need to adjust to jet lag or turn in early to make a wee-hours flight the next day. A hundred feet from your poolside breakfasts are trees often full of howler monkeys.

Advice on opening a B&B in Costa Rica

I asked Rosy and Doug if they have any advice for opening a B&B or a hotel in Costa Rica.

“Find one that’s been built,” Rosy laughs ruefully, although she also says she feels proud of how well their from-the-ground-up building turned out.

“It takes time to grow a business,” says Doug. “So you need operating reserves to tide you over. We planned not to make any money the first years,” he smiles, “And so far, we’re right on plan.”

But even in the months after I visited, their was an uptick in guests, and the hotel is getting great press in guidebooks and online-when I last looked they were the #2 Samara hotel on Trip Advisor. I have little doubt that the next few years will bring even more visitors and a return on their investment, both in financial and life-satisfaction terms. After all, they dreamed a dream and then, with hard work and imagination, they made it happen. It’s all part of the (somewhat flexible) master plan.

Photo of finished version of the Hideaway Hotel by David W. Smith

One of the pleasures of living abroad is starting to see world history and events from another–often radically different–angle.

You can start to make that shift pretty much anywhere–reading the local newspaper at your favorite expat cafe, exploring a crumbling castle, or talking politics with the guy who repairs your car with tin foil and fishing wire. But some places are particularly well-suited for contemplating history from a decidedly local perspective.

Covert ops hottie visits El Avion bar? Lovers of freedom should be so lucky.

An old plane sits grounded atop a lush hillside on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. The battered Fairchild C-123, built in 1954 and now part of a popular open-air bar, is the perfect place to nurse a cold cerveza, watch the sunset, and remember a bizarre chapter in history: the Iran-Contra affair, which from this Central American vantage point would more accurately be called the Contra/Iran affair, with the illegal arms sale to Iran a minor chapter in the 80s-era U.S. covert funding of armed guerillas (the Contras) bent on bringing down Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.

Part of the Costa Verde hotel, the Avion Bar is the perfect place for ruminating on that 1980s arms-for-hostages-and-while-we’re-at-it-let’s-fund-some-paramilitaries scandal because the plane itself played a starring role in the fiasco.

The plane was dubbed “Ollie’s Folly” for its connection to Oliver North, chief architect of a covert operation—lodged firmly in the heart of the Reagan administration—that funded and provided military assistance to the Contras.

Though the U.S. government supported the Contras in the early 1980s, Congress cut off all funding in late 1984, afraid that Nicaragua would become the next Vietnam, and alarmed by reports that the C.I.A. had secretly mined Nicaraguan harbors.

Who needs Congress when you’ve got Ollie North?

Despite signing into law the bill cutting off all funds to the Contra’s paramilitary operations, Reagan ordered his staff to find a way to help the Contras keep ‘body and soul together,’ in his words. Reagan and his staff—especially those in the National Security Council (NSC), secretly raised $34 million for the Contras from other countries, with an additional $2.7 million from private contributors, and later, with funds from the illegal arms sale to Iran. This money was funneled into a private company called ‘the Enterprise,’ and put under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.

The Enterprise had its own operatives, Swiss bank accounts, airfields, and airplanes, including two Fairchild C-123s, one of which now holds up the roof of the Avion bar.

For 16 months in the mid-1980s, the Enterprise provided covert aid to the Contras—aid that the U.S. Congress had specifically prohibited. When U.S. and world press caught wind of the operation and reported on it, Reagan, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and other administration officials repeatedly assured the public (and Congress) that nothing illegal or untoward was going on.

The game is up.
But on October 5, 1986, evidence to the contrary fell to earth over southern Nicaragua. A plane carrying supplies to the Contras was shot down; the two pilots were killed, but Eugene Hasenfus, a former Marine from Wisconsin who’d been hired by the C.I.A., parachuted to safety, only to be captured by Nicaraguan government forces. Hasenfus’ capture was instrumental in uncovering the U.S. covert operation providing money and military help to the Contras. The plane shot down that October day was the sister plane to the one now reincarnated as a hilltop bar in Costa Rica.

Allan Templeton, owner of the Costa Verde hotel, was intrigued by the plane’s history and bought it in 2000 for $3000. Templeton had the plane moved, at great expense and trouble, to its current perch close to Manual Antonio,

'Fusilage suite' at Costa Verde hotel

Costa Rica’s most popular national park. The Costa Verde has a taste for giving old modes of transport new life—recently, they transformed a 1965 Boeing 727 into a high-end ocean-view suite. And they just opened what must be one of the few places in Costa Rica where you can get a Hebrew National kosher hot dog. It’s called The Wagon, and it’s housed in an old train car.

But let’s return to the 1980s for a minute. What happened in Nicaragua back then didn’t stay in Nicaragua. In fact, Ollie North had a secret airstrip built in Costa Rica to support his covert ops in Nicaragua, then got himself barred from Costa Rica for life for that and for his alleged part in drug smuggling to fund the Contra effort.

More information on traveling and living in Costa Rica.

For more information in the Iran/Contra Affair: U.S. Congress Iran Contra Committee: Key Findings in 1987

Photos: Costa Verde Hotel.