Casa Cosmos - 48274 Puerto Vallarta

The sleepy fishing village of Puerto Vallarta started coming alive in the early 60’s when early adventurers and celebrities like Tennessee Williams started flocking to its near perfect weather and remote beaches. There were no real hotels then and so these expatriates first bought houses in town and then later encouraged local craftsmen to build romantic vacation villas such as Casa Cosmos just to the south as soon as the newly constructed coastal road opened up.

Long before the advent of “eco-chic”, Puerto Vallarta’s pre-airport remoteness and difficult access required that these early buildings use local materials and employ environmental sensibilities: hand-hewn hardwoods from the local jungles, hand made tiles and brick, and native palm frawn thatch roof “palapas.” These first haciendas were actually rather simple almost colonial style buildings that used wood plantation shutter doors instead of sliding glass, wrought iron latches instead of factory doorknobs, and ceiling fans instead of air conditioning.

Casa Cosmos was built at that time by the late Mexico City society architect Alfredo Terrazes for his parents in his recently acquired exclusive private beach front family compound, sandwiched between his own house and that of his sister. Sr. Terrazes was something of a celebrity himself having just designed American heiress Barbara Hutton’s Cuernavaca villa. He later went on to become the initial architect of the nearby Camino Real Hotel (now DREAMS) on adjacent beach front he owned just to the north.