Villa Caprichosa

Three Levels of Hillside, and a Designer's Eye

Taboga rises steeply out of the bay, and the only sensible way to build on it is in steps. Diane Burn, a designer with an international practice, did exactly that: a villa stacked over three levels into the slope above the village, opened in 2010, planted thickly enough that you reach each terrace through vegetation rather than along a corridor. It was the island's first serious address and remains its best known, having been photographed for Architectural Digest. The interiors are classical rather than tropical, the terraces do the work of public rooms, and the whole composition is arranged around one thing: the ocean below.

Why It Works

Panama City has plenty of good hotels and no coastline worth swimming in. Taboga has the coastline and, until this house, nothing to stay in. Villa Caprichosa closes that gap with five suites, a designer's hand on every surface, a proper restaurant on the roof and enough terrace to disappear on. The scale is right: small enough for the staff to know your name by the second morning, large enough to have a real pool and a real kitchen. A sister house nearby, Casa Esmeralda, adds three more suites for groups who want the run of both.

Why This Location

The ferry from the Amador causeway takes about half an hour, which puts a swimmable Pacific island inside a morning of the capital. Taboga is known as the island of flowers and lives at village pace: a single main street in San Pedro, one of the oldest churches in the Americas at the end of it, boats pulled up on the sand, and a path climbing to Cerro Vigía for the view back across the bay. Gauguin spent a season here in the 1880s, which the island has never quite stopped mentioning. From the terraces you watch the line of cargo ships at anchor waiting their turn for the canal, which is the most Panamanian view there is.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: designed, hillside, Mediterranean, island-slow

• Rooms: five suites in the main villa, each treated differently, with three more in the sister house Casa Esmeralda

• Best For: couples, design-minded travellers, small groups taking the whole villa

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the top-floor terrace at dusk, with the ships queueing for the canal strung out across the water

• Dining: La Dolce Vita on the roof, Italian Mediterranean cooking built on local produce; breakfast included

• Amenities: main pool and a private pool in the top suite, terraced gardens, room service, snorkelling and fishing arranged, family rooms

• Attractions: San Pedro village and its church, Cerro Vigía, the island beaches, the canal anchorage, Panama City by ferry

Five Suites, Five Different Ideas

No two rooms here are treated alike, which is unusual and is the pleasure of the place. The Crown Jewel is the one that made the magazines: four guests, its own pool, the best of the sightlines. The others run smaller and each takes a different position on the hill, so the view, the light and the route to your door all change. Furniture and objects were chosen rather than specified. If you are travelling as a group, the whole villa can be taken, and with Casa Esmeralda alongside it the house can hold a party without becoming a hotel.

La Dolce Vita, on the Roof

The restaurant sits at the top of the building, which on a hillside villa means the top of everything. The cooking is Italian and Mediterranean, worked around what the island and the mainland market supply, and it is open to the air. Breakfast is included and taken up here too. It is worth timing at least one dinner for the hour the light goes, when the bay turns metallic and the anchored ships switch their lamps on one by one.

Getting There, and Why the Crossing Matters

Boats leave from the Amador causeway and take roughly thirty minutes across the bay. That crossing is part of what you are buying: cars barely exist on Taboga, luggage goes up the hill by hand or by cart, and the island empties of day visitors in the late afternoon. Plan arrival around the ferry timetable rather than the other way round, and give yourself two nights. One is not enough to feel the island slow down.