Hotel Casa San Agustin

Ask a Colombian about his country, and you can expect the conversation to quickly turn to the subject of Cartagena de Indias. The beautifully preserved colonial city is a jewel in Colombia’s crown, an UNESCO World Heritage site — a point of national pride, and with good reason. So if you’re going to the trouble to make the trip, you’ll want to do it right. Which, in this case, means staying in the heart of the old walled city in an elegant historic house like Hotel Casa San Agustin.

There are three houses, in fact: the hotel’s designers have cleverly connected a trio of adjacent homes with traditional stucco exteriors. They’re centered around a peaceful courtyard, fringed with palm trees and containing a swimming pool and a unique historical feature — a 300-year-old aqueduct, a throwback to the city’s original irrigation system. And that’s not the only notable relic of the past at Casa San Agustin. The building’s stone gargoyles and traditional wood-beamed beings are original, as are the Renaissance-era oil paintings and dreamy frescoes, on display in the library. Suffice it to say, the Frette linens and artisanal Italian bath products, upstairs in each of the hotel’s 30 rooms and suites, are all brand-new. The stone floors, four-poster beds, and richly tiled bathrooms, though imagined by contemporary designers, certainly evoke the past, perhaps just a more comfortable version of it. That antique armoire is just for show: you’ll be unpacking your suitcase inside a spacious walk-in closet.

Some guest rooms have traditional wooden balconies overlooking the street, ideal for people-watching, and the most lavish suites have private terraces with plunge pools. But some of the loveliest spots to unwind at Casa San Agustin are in the breezy indoor-outdoor public spaces, outfitted with daybeds and divans where guests can retreat during the hottest midday hours. At night, there’s Alma, the hotel’s hip bar and eatery, as well-respected for its craft cocktails as its ceviches. And, of course, the rest of the walled city of Cartagena, a magic place to be when the historic center is beautifully illuminated after dark.