An 11-suite 16th-century manor house on Plaza de las Nazarenas, once home to the conquistador Diego de Almagro and to Simón Bolívar, restored by the Inkaterra family as Peru's first Relais & Chateaux address.
"Eleven suites around one courtyard, the most considered boutique address in the Andes, and the only hotel in Cusco where staff outnumber guests at every shift."
La Casona's building dates from around 1540, among the earliest Spanish constructions in Cusco, set on the foundations of an Inca military training ground (Inca Yachachiq) on what is now Plaza de las Nazarenas. The first recorded resident was the conquistador Diego de Almagro, who briefly occupied the property in 1534 before his Chile expedition; the second documented occupant was Simón Bolívar, who used the house in 1825 after his victory at the Battle of Ayacucho. The manor passed through several aristocratic Cusco families across the 19th and 20th centuries before falling into disrepair. José Koechlin von Stein, the founder of Inkaterra, Peru's pre-eminent eco-luxury hotel company, acquired the property in the early 2000s and undertook a meticulous decade-long restoration, opening it as Inkaterra La Casona in 2009. The hotel was admitted to Relais & Chateaux in 2010, Peru's first, and to National Geographic's Unique Lodges of the World shortly after.
There are 11 suites. Every one. Each is a unique configuration drawn from the original room footprint of the 16th-century building; eight are arranged around the central cobblestone courtyard with its single ancient cedar, three on the upper floor with Plaza de las Nazarenas views. The smallest (Plaza Suite) is around 40 square metres; the largest (the named Plaza Suite Plus and the Inkaterra Suite) approach 65. Décor is Spanish-colonial restrained, wide pine plank floors waxed to a warm dark glow, hand-loomed Andean textiles, baroque mirrors, original 16th-century beams left exposed, modern beds and bathrooms quietly inserted into the historic envelope. Every suite has an in-room fireplace, oxygen on request, heated floors (essential at 3,400m in the Andean winter), and a Bose sound system; bathrooms are slate-and-travertine with underfloor heating and rain showers.
The dining room (also called La Casona) operates exclusively for hotel guests and a small number of external bookings. The menu is contemporary Andean, quinoa risotto with andean cheeses, alpaca tenderloin with chimichurri rocoto, the property's own kitchen-garden produce flown daily from the Inkaterra finca in Urubamba, paired with a Latin American wine list curated by sommelier Andrés Vásquez. Breakfast is taken in the courtyard under the cedar when weather allows. The property runs no spa, no pool, no formal gym; what it does provide is an Inkaterra naturalist guide, in-room massage and acupuncture, a small reading library curated by José Koechlin himself, and, its most distinctive amenity, a full Inkaterra rainforest-to-mountain itinerary that connects guests across the company's Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu Pueblo, and Tambopata properties without a single logistical question to handle independently.
For travellers who want the most considered boutique experience in the Andes, small, private, intelligently staffed, with the most precise sense of place of any Cusco hotel, La Casona is unmatched. The Monasterio is grander, the new Palacio Nazarenas (across the same plaza) is more spectacular, but neither matches La Casona's intimate scale or the depth of the Inkaterra in-house environmental and cultural programme. Eleven suites, one cedar, one courtyard, six generations of Spanish-colonial Cusco history under one terracotta roof.
A Plaza Suite Plus or the Inkaterra Suite, the two largest categories, with the fireplace, original 16th-century beams, and the deepest plaza views, is the Cusco-leg honeymoon room. The Inkaterra concierge handles the Sacred Valley day, the Belmond Hiram Bingham luxury train, and the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo connection without any third party. The dining-room dinner-for-two by the kitchen-garden lamp is the most considered romantic dinner in Cusco.
Anniversary travellers who have done the major hotels of the world tend to find La Casona the most quietly affecting Cusco address. The named suites for major milestones; the Inkaterra naturalist for a private Sacsayhuamán visit at first light without a tour bus in sight; the in-room massage with Andean herbs as the second-day decompression.
For an intentional solo retreat, La Casona is the Cusco answer. Eleven suites limit fellow-guest density to a level no other hotel in town can match. The dining room is small enough that the chef will write to a single guest's diet without ceremony. The reading library, Inkaterra's own, runs to perhaps 600 volumes on Andean archaeology, ecology, and Peruvian literature, which is the most considered hotel-library proposition in South America.
Plaza Nazarenas 113
Cusco 08002
Peru
Plaza de Armas 2 blocks south; Cusco Airport (CUZ) 15 minutes by car
11 suites
Plaza Suite from USD 900/night
Plaza Suite Plus from USD 1,400
Inkaterra Suite from USD 1,800
Rates include breakfast and airport transfer
Check-in: 2:00 PM
Check-out: 12:00 PM
Building c.1540; restored 2009
Relais & Chateaux since 2010
Every suite has a fireplace
Heated floors and oxygen on request
Andean kitchen-garden dining
Inkaterra naturalist guide service
In-room massage and acupuncture
WiFi throughout
From USD 900/night. Only 11 suites means everything books deep, four to six months ahead for May, September dry season, two to three months for shoulder. The Inkaterra Suite books six months minimum.
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