Image: Small Luxury Hotels of the World.
Puerto Plata is a coast we return to, for holidays as much as for work, and each time we stay at Casa Colonial. My husband introduced me to the hotel, and it has become the place we go without weighing the alternatives.
The reason lies in what surrounds it. Tourism on this part of the Dominican coast was once thriving. Today it is shaped largely by budget all-inclusives that rate themselves a generous four stars: a crowd you are expected to enjoy, a buffet breakfast of little distinction and, by evening, hotel animation for guests who have been drinking since the afternoon.
Price was never the point. In our years working in Dominican tourism, partner hotels often offered us rooms, and we still wanted something else: the feeling of travelling to a good, upscale Caribbean island, where you eat well and are free to move about and explore. Casa Colonial gives that back. Its 50 suites stand among Playa Dorada’s large resorts, yet they keep the scale of a small seaside house, made comfortable and personal.
Casa Colonial belongs to the Small Luxury Hotels of the World collection, which currently includes only two hotels in the Dominican Republic.
I like its intimacy, the food and the unobtrusive service. Understanding the family behind it makes that intimacy less surprising.
A daughter’s vision for Playa Dorada
Don Isidro García founded VH Hotels & Resorts, the family business behind Casa Colonial. His daughter Sarah García became its architect and designer. Within a hotel group accustomed to larger resorts, this was a more personal undertaking: the resources of an established family business placed behind a daughter’s imagination.
Sarah was already an experienced hotel architect. Her training had taken her to Florence, and the inspiration for Casa Colonial came during a family holiday in Forte dei Marmi. Walking along the beach with her daughters, she admired the old villas facing the Tuscan sea. She wanted to bring that sense of a gracious seaside home to Puerto Plata, combining European influences with Dominican materials and memories. Casa Colonial opened in December 2004.
The family connection runs through the house. Clay jars once used to keep water cool on the family farm found a new home in the guest corridors. Lucía was named after one of Sarah’s sisters. These were personal references worked into a hotel that welcomed strangers.
In a later interview, Sarah explained that Casa Colonial was intended to give Playa Dorada a new image through architecture and art. That helps explain this small hotel among the all-inclusives. It offered the family a place to express a more intimate ambition for the coast.
The rooms
The care was apparent as soon as I entered the room. I particularly appreciated the Serta mattress, Frette bed linen and Kohler bathroom fittings. Those names mattered because the hotel had thought about the things a guest actually uses, down to the bedding and bathroom. The overall impression was of comfort rather than display.
For a stay today, the main choice is between tropical and ocean views. The hotel’s current suite descriptions distinguish the Ocean Front rooms from the Lanai Ocean Front category, which offers direct beach access from its private balcony. That distinction is more useful when booking than choosing by the word “suite” alone. There are also larger suites and an oceanfront penthouse with a private terrace.
Above the Atlantic
The rooftop was the hotel’s great surprise. Behind the classical architecture lay a pool and four hot tubs overlooking the Atlantic. Being in the water at sunset was one of the pleasures I remembered most vividly.
The infinity pool and hot tubs remain part of Casa Colonial’s offering. The hotel also has Spa Bagua, for a different way to spend an afternoon near the sea.
Down on Playa Dorada, the beach is shared. Other hotels and restaurants line the sand on either side, so this is not a private cove or a deserted shore. What matters is where it lies: inside the access-controlled resort area rather than on an open public beach like those of Sosúa or Cabarete, and it remains a beach for swimming in the sea. You can walk it safely in the evening, even at night, and carry on through the neighbouring resorts. Waves come with the weather, so I would choose it for the combination of hotel and coast rather than for a secluded, consistently flat-water bay.
Lucía and Veranda
Puerto Plata’s restaurants are unsteady: a place that was excellent one year may disappoint the next, or be gone. Casa Colonial has been the most reliable table I know here, season after season. With no all-inclusive programme behind our stays, eating at the hotel became a pleasure in its own right.
Lucía was a particular pleasure. I liked the cooking from the first course through dessert, the presentation, the wine list and the service. The large windows looked into the mangroves—a setting quite different from the sea-facing meals elsewhere in the hotel. It felt like a restaurant worth making time for.
Today, Lucía’s cooking is French-Caribbean. Veranda is its more informal option for breakfast and lunch, with a choice of terrace seating or an air-conditioned dining room. Breakfast was consistently excellent, and having the sea in view made it a good beginning to the day. Lunch by the water is just as dependable, and it suits a working lunch with local partners as well as a holiday one; an all-inclusive buffet, or most other places nearby, would struggle to match it.
Room service is available from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Puerto Plata and beyond
Casa Colonial sits within Playa Dorada, outside central Puerto Plata. Plan on a car or taxi for exploring the city, and arrange the return as well as the outward journey. Gregorio Luperón, the nearest airport, is about 25 minutes away by car, and the hotel offers transfers on request.
Golf is the exception, and a reason to come in its own right. Playa Dorada Golf Course lies about five minutes’ walk from the hotel, so a round needs neither car nor transfer. Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the 18 holes, a par 72 that opened in 1979, and the club has a driving range, a putting green and a short-game area. The layout is open and forgiving, with wide fairways, little rough and water in play, and the Atlantic arrives on the front nine. The course is open all year. An 18-hole round costs about $60 in low season and $75 from November to April, plus tax and the required caddie, considerably less than a Trent Jones course would charge in the United States. The club advertises instructors, which suits a winter week spent learning the game or rebuilding it. The concierge can arrange tee times.
Brugal is the Dominican Republic’s best-known rum, and Puerto Plata is where the house began, in 1888. The company still ages and bottles its rum at its factory here, about seven minutes by car from the hotel, and has received visitors for a tour and a tasting. Ask Casa Colonial’s concierge to confirm access to the company’s own factory and to arrange the visit and transport. Be explicit: you want the official Brugal establishment, not an independent tasting centre or a substitute rum producer.
Casa Colonial also puts the north coast within reach: Sosúa is about 35 minutes by car and Cabarete about 50. Sosúa has tempted us as a base, and for a short while the Gansevoort there was a compelling reason, accommodation-wise, to stay. But Sosúa does not give me the sense of security I have in Playa Dorada, and there the all-inclusive enclave earns its keep.
Cabarete has appealing places to stay and a good restaurant scene, though a fast one that can turn from good to poor within a season. Security is still a concern there, the drive is long, especially on a working visit, and the beach suits wind and kite more than anyone who actually wants to swim in the sea.
Centro León in Santiago is a place I have visited and warmly recommend for its Dominican art and cultural collections. Allow about an hour and a half for the drive each way; this deserves a separate day trip, with time for the museum itself.
The strongest part of my memory of Casa Colonial is the service. At times the staff were so attentive that they seemed to read my mind. That was the quality I appreciated most: being looked after without feeling constantly attended to. It gave this small hotel its ease.
