Five concrete guesthouses across thirteen acres of Vieques hilltop by Canadian architect John Hix, a Louis Kahn protégé who built the first all-solar hotel in the Caribbean, with rainwater cisterns, no air-conditioning, and the only off-grid lodging on the island.
"Louis Kahn's only Caribbean disciple built thirteen acres of off-grid concrete on a Vieques hilltop, the first all-solar hotel in the Caribbean, the most disciplined architectural statement on the island."
Hix Island House is the lifetime project of Canadian-born architect John Hix, who came to Vieques in 1994 after a career that included working under Louis Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania and running his own practice in Toronto. Hix bought a thirteen-acre parcel on a hilltop in the Pilón sector of Vieques and over the next quarter-century built five guesthouses on the land, each demonstrating a different aspect of his thesis: tropical architecture should be made from raw, formwork-cast concrete; should rely on cross-ventilation, deep overhangs, and shade rather than air-conditioning; should harvest its own rainwater and generate its own power. The architectural press took notice, Dwell, Remodelista, Dezeen, ArchDaily, and Hix Island House became, by the 2010s, one of the most visited reference projects in Caribbean small-scale architectural practice.
The five guesthouses are Casa Solaris, Casa Triangular, La Casona, Casa Impresionista, and the original John Hix Studio, totalling thirteen guest units across the property. Casa Solaris is the headline structure, six apartments stacked in pairs of rectangular concrete blocks, completed in 2016, the first hotel accommodation in the Caribbean to operate entirely on solar power, fully disconnected from the commercial grid. All cooling is by cross-ventilation and trade winds (no air-conditioning); all hot water is solar-heated; all freshwater is harvested from rainwater into the cisterns under each unit; all rooms have outdoor showers, screen-only window walls (no glass), and immediate sight lines onto the surrounding sub-tropical scrub forest. Bed linens are organic cotton; furniture is purpose-designed by Hix himself.
The property is not a conventional hotel and explicitly does not present itself as one. There is no restaurant, no bar, no concierge desk, no daily housekeeping. Breakfast is delivered to each unit in a basket each morning, fresh fruit, granola, eggs from a local farm, coffee, juice, and a small open-air yoga pavilion offers a daily morning class included with the room. Guests cook for themselves in the apartment kitchens (each is fully equipped) or drive into Esperanza (ten minutes south) and Isabel Segunda (ten minutes north) for restaurant meals. The pool is salt-water, gravity-fed, set into the hillside between the guesthouses; the rest of the property is left wild and is patrolled by paso fino horses kept by the architect on the surrounding pasture.
Hix Island House attracts a particular kind of guest, architects, writers, single travellers on serious retreats, couples who want a Caribbean week without the resort apparatus. It will frustrate any guest expecting the conventional hotel proposition (room service, concierge, on-site dining) but reward any guest seeking the conceptual one: an architecturally rigorous, off-grid, naturally cooled, low-impact retreat from a designer who is the only Louis Kahn-trained architect in Caribbean practice. The property has been continuously profiled in the architectural press for two decades and is the most-published small hotel in Puerto Rico.
Hix Island House is one of the strongest small-hotel solo-retreat propositions in the Caribbean. The deliberate absence of restaurant, bar, and concierge is the architecture-school point, the guest is on the land, in the building, with the trade winds, the morning yoga, and the basket breakfast, and otherwise alone. The five guesthouses are spread across the thirteen acres for full visual and acoustic privacy between units. Book one of the Casa Solaris apartments for the off-grid statement or the John Hix Studio for the original unit.
For wellness travellers, Hix Island House is the rare Caribbean property where the architecture and the brief align, passive cooling instead of air-conditioning, rainwater rather than mains, solar for everything else, organic linens, morning yoga as a daily fixture, no televisions, no in-room media. The structure of the day is what most modern wellness retreats artificially construct; here it is the consequence of the building. The salt-water gravity pool, the surrounding sub-tropical scrub forest, and the paso fino horses on the pasture supply the rest.
For honeymoons, Hix Island House is the alternative to El Blok, equally Vieques but on a hilltop instead of the malecón, without the social-scene exposure, with full architectural separation between units. The Casa Solaris apartments have private outdoor showers and bedrooms that open via screen-only walls onto the trade winds; the lack of in-room glass and air-conditioning is a deliberate honeymoon proposition for the right couple. Pair the property with three nights at El Blok for the design-and-malecón counterweight.
PR-995, Km 1.1, Sector Pilón
Vieques, PR 00765
Puerto Rico
Esperanza 10 minutes south; Isabel Segunda (ferry/airport) 10 minutes north; Sun Bay 12 minutes; Mosquito Bay (bio-bay) 15 minutes
13 units across 5 guesthouses
Casa Solaris (off-grid, 6 apts) from $295/night
Casa Triangular & La Casona apartments from $260/night
John Hix Studio from $310/night
Three-night minimum most stays
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Property founded 1994; Casa Solaris (first all-solar Caribbean hotel) completed 2016
First all-solar Caribbean hotel
13 acres of private land
5 guesthouses by John Hix
Salt-water gravity pool
Daily yoga pavilion class
Breakfast basket delivered
No air-conditioning (cross-ventilated)
From $260/night. Direct booking and rates verified for 2026; reservation requests confirmed within 24 hours.
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