Being in Costa Rica
is this: being barefoot
and free.
A house with no front.
Only horizon.
The owners chose the name. For them, being in Costa Rica is exactly that: being barefoot and free. No protocol. No facade. No tension from the life they left behind.
The house responds with absolute precision. It rests on the hill of Nosara — it doesn't dig in, it rests — and opens its eyes in every direction. There is no main facade because the forest surrounds the site from all sides, and every side deserves to be seen.
The infinity pool disappears into the green at sunset. The terraces run along the house like open corridors to the forest. Each room has its own window to the landscape, its own moment of light. The house doesn't organize the views — it multiplies them.
"The forest of Nosara surrounds the house from every side."
The site was no accident. Nosara has a forest that accompanies, that doesn't intimidate. A forest that enters through the windows as living vegetation, that colors the interiors green, that regulates the climate with its constant presence.
The house is designed so that forest is the first building material. The views, the sound, the breeze, the light filtered through the canopy — all of that is architecture. All of it was designed with the same intention as the travertine floor or the teak ceiling.
From the kitchen, from the bedroom, from the upper terrace — the forest is always there. The house doesn't frame it or domesticate it. It invites it in.
Travertine, teak and white.
Nothing more.
The material palette of Casa Descalzo is a decision of humility. Natural travertine on floors and terraces — warm, porous, honest. Teak wood on the ceilings — the same warmth the tropics already have. White on walls and structure — so nothing competes with the green of the forest on the other side of the glass.
The black steel of windows and railings trace precise lines on the white. They're not decoration — they're the honest structure of the house, visible because there's nothing to hide.
The bathrooms are the only place where the palette opens up. The hexagonal sky blue, the geometric gold — small moments of color that belong to the interior, to the intimate space. Outside, the forest provides the color.
The pool disappears
into the green.
The sunset, too.
The pool edge was designed for that specific moment: when the sun drops over the hills of Nosara and the water reflects the orange sky. The horizon line of the pool and the horizon line of the landscape merge. No edge. No limit. Only the green, the water, and the fading light.
