+ Owner’s Story

We first visited Nosara as vacationers in 2007 and fell pretty hard for the small town loveliness of Guiones Beach. Like so many others, we were captivated and kept coming back. We liked the volunteerism, we liked that people felt that they were stewards of the land, and we loved walking into a restaurant and knowing 90% of the people there.

My husband and I retired and moved to Nosara in 2012. We bought our land in 2008 so, we had several years to plan our new home, and plan we did! From our super-deep swimming pool to the bench in the master bath shower, no detail was too small for our attention. My husband, Alvin Rosenbaum, had studied architecture at Taliesin, and we used the book "A Pattern Language" in our planning. The house is outstanding not just for its attractiveness, but also because it has excellent air flow, lots of different spaces providing privacy (we were retiring together, after all) and it was designed to be a year-round residence offering comfortable living despite extremes of heat, wind, and rain.

My husband grew up in Florence, Alabama in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, The Rosenbaum House. The Rosenbaum family donated the house to the City of Florence and it is now a museum. Our home in Nosara displays many of Wright's signature details - built-in cabinetry and desks, the indirect lighting frieze, and of course the seamless transition from indoors to out-of-doors. If you look at photos of the living rooms of the two homes together, the similarities are beautifully striking.

We designed the house together but the idea of one-level living and the brick floor throughout was my idea. The house that we rented while we built – which is right next door and the first “gringo” house built in Nosara – has brick floors and they are still beautiful 50 years later. I know a lot of homes in Nosara have tile floors but I have always found them to be super slippery getting out of the pool or shower, and not particularly attractive. I’m so happy we went with the brick because it has turned out to be an outstanding feature of the house.

Because we live in our home year ‘round, we incorporated some special features that make life in Nosara more comfortable. Most importantly, we have a deep well. It came with our land and we rehabilitated it and use it to water the garden. We also have a water tank. We have never run out of water. We have a solar system that runs our pool pump, provides for a constant electrical current despite power fluctuations (protecting appliances) and acts as a back-up generator when the power is out. We also have de-humidifiers with built-in drains in our clothes closet and food pantry. Also, we included special cat-friendly features - cat stairs, a special cat doorway into our bedroom, and the light deck doubles as a cat walkway all the way around the kitchen and living room. Needless to say, the cats love these features, and we like them because they add a splash of color and a hint of playfulness

Another unusual detail about our home is that we live in the middle of a very large garden. We had a beautiful garden in Washington D.C. and wanted to create a similarly peaceful space here. We really didn’t care about an “ocean view” because that view is always the same and gets to be like wallpaper after a while – it is just there. The garden is dynamic – a different view out of each window every week.

I believe in “location location location” and I love being able to walk to the beach every day. The people I see most often on the beach are those of us who live within walking distance. It is so easy to be healthy here. I walk to my spinning class at Bodhi Tree and my boxing class at Casa La Tigresa. I know that the people who fall in love with Nosara and our house, will appreciate its location, its attention to detail and its timeless architecture for many years to come.