At Al Suave House, the rooms were built around space and nature rather than the other way around: the breeze off the Pacific, the shade of the palms, the river-shaped pool, the morning sun. Each one was shaped to catch a different part of the place it sits in. As The Architectural Authority wrote of the result: "When architecture is born from the soul, it needs no embellishment — just the natural path of water and the shadow of trees."
Designed by Cincopatasalgato, led by José Roberto Paredes, with interiors by Pepe Cabrera Homes, the house began as a series of conversations. The architects interviewed our founder, Matt, and his entire family, children included, and shaped every pavilion of the house around one person's idea of rest. What comes out of that process, and its respect for the surrounding landscape, is a house where no two rooms are alike. Each one offers the same sense of ease, drawn from a different view.
No two rooms are the same
There are five en-suite bedrooms in all. The primary suite sits in its own building, with a large bathroom, an outdoor shower, and private access to its own secret garden. The space is generous and sheltered, made for a private yoga session or a massage.
Two of the bedrooms are kings that face opposite directions on purpose. One opens to the Pacific, the other to the tropical garden, so a guest who chooses the ocean has a reason to return for the trees.
The last two rooms live inside the treehouse. Built with children in mind, though just as good for a group of friends, each sleeps up to three and has its own bathroom, alongside a two-story library, a games area, and a cargo net for reading. The treehouse stands a little apart from the primary suite, separate enough that everyone has room to unwind, yet close enough to keep the group together and within reach of the shared spaces where the house gathers to play, the pool among them.
Made with Salvadoran soul
Much of what gives the rooms their feeling comes from how they were made. The materials are drawn almost entirely from the region: clay, stone, and wood from Central America. Much of the house was shaped by Salvadoran and regional artisans. Condé Nast Traveler singled out the house's "dramatic slatted-wood façade," which blends almost completely into the landscape behind it.
That same care runs through the details, from handmade clay pieces to nest-shaped lamps by a local artist, set beside furniture from international design houses. As The Architectural Authority put it, "luxury lies not in objects, but in the experience of dwelling within a space that breathes with you."
The space between waves
El Zonte is one of the most celebrated surf towns in Central America, and the house is built for it. There's a surf rack by every room; guests bring their own boards or take a house board down to the break, a short walk through the back gate to the black sand.
But the rooms are made just as much for the hours off the water. Matt, our founder, is fond of an idea from William Finnegan's Barbarian Days: that surfing is really about what happens between one wave and the next. That space, where everything stops, is what the house was designed to hold: a long lunch, a slow morning, a chair moved into the shade to find the right view of the ocean.
Comfort, quietly
The rooms are built to stay open to the outside. Glass walls slide back so the sea breeze and cross-ventilation can move through, and the morning light comes in early and low, filtered through the palms. A Sonos system reaches every area of the house, but the rooms themselves have no televisions. The idea is rest, and the sound of the ocean.
You won't find a work desk here either; that isn't what the house was built for. What you will find is that every room has a feature of its own: some open onto private gardens set beneath the palms, others to a view of the Pacific or out across the gardens. There's more on all of it on our Explore page.
Take it al suave
Al suave is the Salvadoran way of saying take it easy: to slow down and let the day move at its own pace. It's the name of the house and, more or less, the only instruction. So bring your family, bring your friends, and come take it al suave. Book your stay.
As featured in: TIME · Condé Nast Traveler · Forbes · Wallpaper · Dwell · The Architectural Authority · World Architecture Festival 2024
