Cuna del Angel Hotel

Positive energy and support from ANGELS

Author: Tom Nagel (Owner)

In March 2003, I first came to Costa Rica with my three sons for adventure holidays and was fascinated, starting our trip like many tourists in Guanacaste. When I traveled south to Dominical, I only then realized that the south was much greener, the jungle lush, there were more wild animals and everywhere rivers with abundant water, much more than up north.

That’s when I decided to grow my roots here and be happy forever …

I soon found the right place, a little backpacker Hotel, with all the permissions, thus saving time for all legal papers.  To get inspired by my new hotel’s architecture, I first traveled to Antigua, a Guatemala city with many colonial-style houses.

As Costa Rica has many earthquakes, I was very grateful to my structural engineer, who put more iron in the foundations than I thought necessary. And later on, when we had some nice shakes, nothing happened, thanks to him. Costa Rica has strict construction and seismic laws.

While the walls were rising, I needed furniture and decoration, so I went shopping for my future guests’ rooms and all open spaces. I like shopping. I went to Indonesia for the furniture because of the beautiful carvings and craftsmanship in Guadalajara in Mexico, I bought glasses and plates, and lamps I found in San José. And I also discovered a Cuban guy in San José, who made incredible stained-glass windows, which you can now find in the bathrooms. Then somebody recommended Barro Barroco to me, also in San José, a factory specialized in pouring concrete tiles like in old times with colored designs and patterns, washbasins, fountains, or statues. In the year of 2005, finishing my hotel, I certainly was my best client.

Why the name Cuna (Cradle) de Angel? It is because I believe in Angels, and my guests should feel like in a cradle, safe, taken care of and pampered, forgetting their problems.

The restaurant has eight columns, like the ceremony huts of the indigenous people of “Boruca”.

In the restaurant’s center, we embedded four mosaic designs with another spiritual meaning: clouds, water, sun, and earth. All rooms have a different Angel name, and as you know, each angel represents another quality or challenge. In which one did or will you sleep?

Then, of course, Costa Rica being a nature preserving country, I was following their example, getting the five levels of sustainability in 2009 and became certified as Carbon Neutral. 

Listening to my clients in the restaurant, many having issues with gluten, I decided to create a 100% gluten-free restaurant. Not an easy task to achieve the same quality of taste with gluten-free materials. Don Memo, our chef, succeeded after one year of trials to bake a delicious bread with three different flours, none of them wheat.  Our staff cannot bring their food from home to avoid cross-contamination in the kitchen and back areas.

Back to today’s reality: since March this year, Cuna del Angel Hotel has been closed and hope to open on December 15th, 2020. We kept all our staff on the payroll. So, if you come to visit us in the restaurant, you will enjoy the same persons taking care of you.