Costa Rica Hotels in San José - Don Carlos Hotel
Susan Carmichael
History weaves through people and their stories. The Don Carlos Hotel in the historic neighborhood district of Barrio Amón, eight blocks from downtown San José, has a rich tradition and quite a story to tell.
Barrio Amón was probably the first residential area of San José. If you look at the history of our country, it is where San José began," said Lee Weiler an American who began his adventure in Costa Rica in the 1960's.
A string of events brought Mr. Weiler permanently to the country to not only set down family roots, but also to work as an educator and eventually become the owner of the historic Don Carlos Hotel.
The Don Carlos Hotel is a gem with a nationally famous gift shop that started as a bookshelf and is now a two story browsing treasure. The Don Carlos has also been known for years as being a gathering place for the international scientific community.
San José Hotel - Don Carlos Gift Shop
Lee Weiler and I shared a cup of chamomile tea in the lobby of the Don Carlos Hotel where water fountains added a content feeling. Colorful mosaic tiles create scenes that tell stories of the countries history, people, and customs.
The hotel has done a major renovation in the past five years and has emphasized great importance on ambiance while seeming to lend a tribute to its founder and renowned archaeologist, Don Carlos.
The story begins on the sea in the 1960's and touches on the old times in downtown to the Vietnam War to raising children and grandchildren in Costa Rica.
Costa Rica San José, Don Carlos Hotel
Can you first explain how you came to Costa Rica?
That's a tough question. I probably came to Costa Rica back in the early 1960's. I was introduced to Costa Rica because I was going to University in the States and during the summer months I had the opportunity to become a merchant seaman. I other words, I "shipped-out" on vacation times.
One of the ships I had a chance to go off on was a 60-day cruise all the way down to Chile; it stopped off in Puntarenas. When I arrived in Costa Rica, I naturally thought the country was just like out of the movie Jurassic Park.
Later, I had the opportunity in University to meet my future wife. She was a student there, and when I learned she was from Costa Rica I said, "I've been to your country." When I mentioned I had only been to Puntarenas of course the laughs naturally occurred. She told me that I hadn't even seen the country.
I was working on my Master's degree in anthropology - and this is a key point - I learned that my wife's father was a renowned archaeologist. He had written a number of books. He was involved in pre-Columbian archeology - gold and jade for example - and most of the Jade Museum in the Institute Nacional Seguro was his collection. He wrote a book for the museum as well.
Well my excitement was two-fold, here was a girl that I was dating who had a father who was an archaeologist. Right away, I went to my department of anthropology to try to put a field trip together to go to Costa Rica, hoping that my girlfriend's father could put us up in his hotel. So, that was my introduction to the country.
San José Hotel - Don Carlos Staircase
When did you come again to Costa Rica?
When my future wife and I graduated, my anthropology department had a chance to do some field work outside of Guadalajara, Mexico. So her mother came to the States for the graduation, and I accompanied them as far as Mexico.
I went off to Guadalajara to do a little town called Mexicatan to do research. My future wife went back to Costa Rica. Of course love had set in by then, so shortly afterwards I finished up my research and caught a plane straight to Costa Rica.
I proposed to my future wife's father that I wanted to marry his daughter. In those days, it had to be done. He said yes. But rather than setting a date, he told me to go home and come back a year later. Well, I thought I was an expert on Central American anthropology, but I had never heard of that rule. Don Carlos was from Liechtenstein, so it must have been a European thing to keep the couple apart for a year.
I went back to the States. A year later I came down to Costa Rica, and we were married. I ended up teaching in Oregon, and then I was transferred to the University of Texas at Austin. My wife and I both taught there. She became pregnant. Being a very Latino girl, she wanted to be near family. And, in reality it made no difference to me whether we lived in Costa Rica or Portland, Oregon. She pointed out to me on the map that Costa Rica was closer to Austin, Texas than Portland, Oregon, so we came back to Costa Rica for the birth.
When I got down here, I recognized that the Vietnam War had very little significance here. I remembered in Texas and in Oregon that most people were in University to avoid the draft. When I arrived here, I decided this was neat. So, we stayed.
One year went to another and before I knew it, we never left. Part of it was I recognized while I was in Costa Rica that there were strong family ties - something we didn't have in the States or at least not with my family. And, I recognized very quickly that my daughter and my son (both born in Costa Rica) would have family close to them if we stayed.
They had grandfathers, uncles, and aunts. Back in the States, family was dispersed all over. So they never would have seen them. It became important enough for me to forgo the University work that I was doing to stay in Costa Rica.
I just want to clarify a point. You said the Vietnam War didn't have significance meaning you do not think it greatly impacted the country?
In the days and years of the Vietnam War it was always front page in the United States. It was a political issue that went 24 hours a day as we see much of the issues today. In Costa Rica, the Vietnam War was page 16 - a little article. It wasn't something that the people were overly aware of. It would be like talking about the war in Bosnia or a problem in Afghanistan. When it is a world issue - it isn't something that concerns people in Costa Rica on a daily basis.
What was Costa Rica like when you first came down here?
It was an unusual place. It was a country where we first saw ox carts right here by Parque Morazan or Parque España. We still had horse drawn carts that would deliver groceries from the Central Market downtown to the front door of my father-in-law's hotel. It was still more laid back. It was still an agriculturally based country. We were really strong in bananas. United Fruit Company was still strong here in those days.
Coffee was still king. One still saw campesinos (country people) walking in downtown San José without shoes on. It wasn't something you stopped at looked at, it was a natural thing. It was the days when for example my wife never could have gone downtown, and I repeat never, with slacks on. It was unheard of - couldn't happen. None of us could have ever gone downtown with shorts on that was something for the beach - not for downtown San José. It was more dressed up then, and a lot more elegant.
You mentioned how you first came in contact with the Don Carlos Hotel - can you explain what it was like, and what is the story of this hotel?
The Don Carlos Hotel goes back way before World War II. It started off as a hotel called the Pensión Alemán. But as you can imagine, the German name was not a good name when we had World War II.
Costa Rica did to Germans similar to what the U.S. did to Germans and Japanese. We picked them up and put them in camps. We actually shipped them off to the States. Not all the Germans, but the Germans that we felt couldn't be trusted. Therefore, the name was changed immediately to Pensión Alemán to Pensión Canada - a very neutral country and a very neutral sign out front.
It was a small hotel probably located two blocks due west of where we're located now. And, it was the type of place that was one of the oldest Pensiónes. People came to stay, they were given three meals a day a lot of people from the outside who knew Don Carlos would come and stay there for the meals. Don Carlos had originally come from Liechtenstein - let me add why - he had met a lot of Costa Ricans while he was studying in Bon, Germany, and these Costa Ricans were over there for example studying in the medical field. He became very close for example with the Jiménez family.
Later in years when he was doing some research in anthropology and art in Peru, the Jiménez family contacted him and said they were going to build the first major hotel in Costa Rica with the United Fruit Company. They asked him to come back and help in the construction and be the first general manager. Don Carlos came back and got involved in the construction of the Grand Hotel Costa Rica and became the general manager for the first number of decades.
All the major functions were catered by the Grand Hotel - a time when the main floor of the National Theater was raised for dances. A time when if any major dignitary came into town, he stayed at the Grand Hotel. Of course, because the Hotel was jointly owned by the United Fruit Company, many of the guests came in on the banana boats. The came in through the port of Limón, took the train up to San José. Usually guests were registered right on the train on the way from Limón.
Later in years, Don Carlos became fairly renowned in the field of archeology. Once again, there was a connection with the United Fruit Company. United was putting banana plantations all over Central America, and they naturally turned over all their artifacts to him and to the daughter of one of the owners of the company - the Zemurray family.
Their daughter Doris, was about the same age of Don Carlos. She eventually become Doris Zemurray Stone. Don Carlos and Doris shared all their archeology discoveries. They also did joint publications throughout all of Central America. Doña Doris's family is probably one of the largest contributors to the University of Tulane. I believe the library is named after her husband, Ronnie Stone. The main base for United Fruit Company was in Louisiana.
Don Carlos, as he became more involved in archeology, decided to pull away from the Grand Hotel and that is when he took over the Pensión Alemán and changed the name to Pensión Canada. He ran that location and then finally decided to move it to the present location which is right next to the National Insurance (yet to be built). At the time he moved the hotel was the time of the eruption of the Irazú volcano. The eruption dropped ash on San José for several years.
Next >>
| 
About this Site
