Hotel & Restaurante La Gran Francia

A House From the 1520s That Outlived William Walker

Granada was founded in 1524 and this house went up within a few years of it, an upscale inn looking down on Lake Nicaragua that hosted Spanish royalty and, three centuries later, the American filibuster William Walker, who ran his campaign from these rooms. When Walker burned Granada in 1856 the adobe walls held. A second floor went on in 1865, with polished-wood balconies over the square. Then came a long neglect, and in 1995 part of the structure collapsed. What stands today is a restoration led by the Costa Rican architect Ronald Zürcher, worked out from seventeenth-century documents and using the techniques they describe.

Why It Works

The first reason is that almost nothing else in the Americas is this old and still in use as a hotel, and you feel it in the wall thickness and the ceiling heights rather than in a plaque. The second is the restoration itself, which chose authenticity over comfort by default: hand-painted tiles, antique furniture, fresh flowers, and rooms that are the shape the building gives them. The third is El Balcón, the rooftop lounge above the Parque Central, which is the single best place in Granada to sit with a drink as the light goes.

Why This Location

The southeast corner of the Parque Central is the exact centre of Granada: the cathedral is across the square, Calle La Calzada starts a few steps away and runs down towards the lake, and the Convento San Francisco with its pre-Columbian statuary is a short walk north. Boats for the Isletas leave from the lakefront, Mombacho is the volcano on the southern horizon, and Masaya and the Pueblos Blancos are half an hour up the road. Being on the square means noise at certain hours, which is the price of not needing a taxi for anything.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: Colonial, historic, formal, central

• Rooms: Spread across two connected buildings in three tiers: classic rooms that are small and intimate, larger colonial rooms, and suites, the upper ones opening onto the 1865 balconies; hand-painted tiles, antique furnishings and fresh flowers throughout

• Best For: Couples, history and architecture travellers, anyone who wants to walk everywhere in Granada

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: El Balcón, the rooftop lounge looking over the Parque Central

• Dining: El Arcángel for gourmet dinners and El Balcón for drinks above the square, with breakfast included in the rate

• Amenities: Shaded pool area, colonial courtyard, air conditioning, wifi throughout

• Attractions: Granada cathedral on the Parque Central, Calle La Calzada, the Convento San Francisco, the Isletas boat landings, Mombacho volcano, Masaya and the Pueblos Blancos

El Arcángel and El Balcón

The food and drink sit in the sister building. El Arcángel is the restaurant and it plays gourmet rather than local canteen, which in a city with plenty of cheap good food gives it a clear job: the dinner you dress for. El Balcón is upstairs, open to the square, and its entire argument is the view of the Parque Central with a glass in your hand. Breakfast is included and taken downstairs. Between the two, most guests never leave the building in the evening.

Classic, Colonial or Suite: the Rooms Are Not Equal

This matters more here than in a new hotel. The classic rooms are small and intimate, which is the honest description of what a 1520s floor plan allows, and they are the cheapest way into the building. The colonial rooms give more space. The suites give the most, and the upstairs ones open onto the polished-wood balconies added in 1865. All of them carry the same hand-painted tiles and antique furniture, so the difference is square metres and outlook rather than decoration. Decide which you want before you arrive.

What the Restoration Got Right

Restorations of this kind usually go one of two ways: a museum nobody can sleep in, or a modern hotel wearing a colonial mask. Zürcher's work went at it from the documents, used the original techniques on the adobe and kept the proportions, then put the plumbing, the air conditioning and the wifi in quietly. The result reads as a building that has simply kept going for five centuries, which is the hardest effect to achieve.