Casa Faustina Boutique Hotel

A Palette Lifted From the Walls of Antigua

Antigua is a town of colour before it is anything else: ochre and indigo and burnt rose on the plaster, framed by volcanoes and broken by the ruins of churches the earthquakes took. Casa Faustina builds its rooms from exactly that. Each one is given a palette drawn from the textures of the town, and each is dressed in cotton hand woven on a traditional loom, so no two are the same. The rest follows the same logic: colonial architecture, Guatemalan antiques, sculpture and ceramics and ironwork chosen piece by piece, and fresh flowers where a lesser house would put a brochure.

Why It Works

Two reasons decided it. The first is that fourteen rooms is the right size for Antigua, a town best taken slowly and on foot, and a house this scale knows who is staying in it. The second is the spa. Antigua has a great many handsome colonial hotels and rather fewer that can send a guest for a massage, a facial and a sauna without leaving the property, which matters after a night walk up Acatenango or a day on the cobbles. Add breakfast cooked to order and the arithmetic is straightforward.

Why This Location

Colonia El Virrey sits on the edge of the grid rather than inside it, roughly twenty minutes on foot from the Parque Central. That walk is the trade: quiet nights and a garden in exchange for not being able to fall out of the door into the square. In the other direction the town delivers everything within an easy radius, the cathedral and the Palacio de los Capitanes on the Parque, the arch of Santa Catalina on Fifth Avenue, the ruins and museum of Santo Domingo, La Merced with its yellow facade, and the climb to the Cerro de la Cruz for the view back over the roofs to Agua.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: colonial, collected, calm

• Rooms: fourteen, each with its own palette drawn from the town and hand woven cotton textiles

• Best For: couples, travellers recovering from a volcano climb, anyone who prefers a house to a hotel

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the room palettes, taken from the plaster and stone of Antigua rather than from a design book

• Dining: breakfast cooked to order, restaurant on site, private picnics and dinners arranged on request

• Amenities: full spa with massage, facials and sauna, garden and lounge areas, concierge for tours, secured parking, front desk around the clock, step free access, pets accepted

• Attractions: Parque Central and the cathedral (about twenty minutes on foot), the Santa Catalina arch, Santo Domingo, La Merced, the Cerro de la Cruz, the Agua, Fuego and Acatenango volcanoes

Fourteen Rooms, No Two the Same

The palette is the organising device and it is done properly: colours pulled from the plaster, the stone and the tile of the town, then carried through the textiles, which are woven by hand in fine cotton using techniques that predate the hotel by several centuries. Antiques and craft pieces are placed rather than distributed. The result is a set of rooms that feel collected over time, which is a difficult effect to fake and an obvious one to spot.

The Garden, the Spa and Breakfast to Order

The garden is kept rather than left, with lounge areas that the house also uses for small events. The spa is full service: massage, facials and a sauna, which in a town where most visitors arrive with sore legs is a genuine argument. Breakfast is cooked to order, and the kitchen will also arrange a picnic or a private dinner, the sort of thing a fourteen room house can do and a hundred room one cannot.

What to Know Before You Book

Antigua is cobbled throughout, so bring shoes that cope; the walk into the centre is pleasant but not smooth. The hotel offers step free access and accepts pets, both uncommon in the town's colonial houses. Parking is secured on site, which is worth having, since street parking inside the grid is difficult. Check in is from mid afternoon and check out early afternoon, and the concierge will arrange volcano climbs and coffee finca visits with more notice rather than less.