Grand Hotel Costa Rica, San Jose

The Grand Hotel of Costa Rica is a true gem among the hotels of San Jose, Costa Rica, and it also happens to be the very first such hotel in the country. It was formed in 1928, and up till that time, there was no major first class hotel in the capital city. An act of the Constitutional Congress of the Republic of that year made it possible to get the hotel in town. The hotel got funding from the government, and in turn the hotel agreed to always sell Costa Rican coffee, as well as the hotel agreed to always keep two rooms available for the government to use for dignitaries and the like.

In 2004, President Abel Pacheco declared the hotel to be a national landmark of the country. The architecture of the place is also quite wonderful, expressing the best in Victorian style architecture. In recent times, the Choice International Hotel chain has acquired the hotel, and added it to its growing list of historic hotels that are being turned into Resorts. It remains a popular destination in the capital city not only because of its historicity, but because it also sits very close to the ocean and some of the best mountain side landscaping in the country.

On December 7th, 2004, the Gran Hotel Costa Rica was declared by the President of the country Abel Pacheco a historical-architectural landmark of Costa Rica, not only for being the first major hotel of the country, but also for its long trajectory, its architecture, which represents the San José of those years, and the historical complex it forms with other landmarks in the area.