Las Clementinas

The House Clementina Herrera Built on the City Wall

Clementina Herrera was a pawnbroker’s daughter who studied in France, came home before the war and inherited her parents’ property at the landward edge of Casco Viejo. In the 1930s she built a house on it, on a segment of the colonial wall raised in 1673, and filled it with art, hand-painted tiles and furniture collected abroad. She was among the first women in the city to wear trousers, and the neighbourhood called her the bad aunt because her door stayed open to women who wanted an evening of their own. The house was abandoned for years, found again, and restored from 2010 into one of the first hotels of the reviving quarter.

Why It Works

Two things define the place. The first is that you get an apartment rather than a room: six of them at around eighty square metres, with a kitchen and a living room separate from the bedroom, which changes what a week in Panama City looks like. The second is that the restoration worked from the original architect’s drawings, with wood recovered from Lake Gatún, rather than gutting the shell and re-styling it. The Michelin Guide lists the house and it holds a B certification for sustainability, which are two different confirmations that the work was done properly.

Why This Location

Calle 11 and Avenida B is the landward corner of Casco Viejo, where the quarter meets Santa Ana, and the building stands on the 1673 wall itself. Plaza Herrera is at the end of the street. The National Theatre and the Metropolitan Cathedral are a short walk in, along with the Canal Museum and the churches. What this corner gives you that the seafront does not is ordinary life: the market side of the quarter, bakeries, people going to work. The rooftop settles the argument in the evening, with the old roofs in front and the towers of the new city behind them.

Fast Facts

• Price: Upscale

• Vibe: Historic, residential, quietly Panamanian

• Rooms: Six apartments of 80 to 85 square metres with full kitchens and separate living rooms, sleeping up to four, plus three studios of 25 to 32 square metres with shared terrace access

• Best For: Longer stays, families, couples who cook, anyone working from the city

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The rooftop, and the fact that the building stands on the 1673 city wall

• Dining: Mahalo Cocina y Jardín, brunch and dinner daily, with live music and cultural evenings

• Amenities: Gardens, rooftop terrace with panoramic views, soundproofed rooms, B certification for sustainability, listed in the Michelin Guide

• Attractions: Plaza Herrera, the National Theatre, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Canal Museum, the whole of Casco Viejo on foot

Six Apartments and Three Studios

The six apartments run from eighty to eighty-five square metres, which in hotel terms is a great deal of room, and each has a proper kitchen and a living room separate from the bedroom. They take up to four people. The three studios are between twenty-five and thirty-two square metres, built for one or two, and they share a terrace. The rooms are soundproofed, which counts for something in a quarter that plays music late. If you are staying more than three nights, take an apartment.

Mahalo Cocina y Jardín

The restaurant sits in the garden and runs brunch and dinner every day, with live music and cultural evenings through the week. It is open to the quarter rather than reserved for guests, which is the older idea of what a small hotel is for, and it keeps the building working the way Clementina ran it. Eat in the garden at least once.

What the Restoration Kept

The work began in 2010 and followed the drawings of Leonardo Villanueva Meyer, the architect of the original house. Wood salvaged from Lake Gatún went back into the building. Hand-painted tiles, art and furnishings from Clementina’s own collecting survived the abandoned years in enough quantity to set the character of the rooms. What you notice is that the house was not converted so much as reopened: the proportions are domestic, and the light comes in the way it was meant to.