Atlantis Hotel

Curves Instead of Corners, on Playa Bonita

Atlantis began in the nineteen eighties, when a group of young Europeans washed up on Playa Bonita and decided to build. What they put up was not a hotel but a collection of stone houses with curves instead of corners, patios, columns, towers and galleries, the sort of architecture that only happens when nobody is drawing to a budget sheet. Friends followed, many of them artists and writers, and each added something. The result grew into eighteen rooms, and it still reads as a settlement rather than a building. The beach is directly in front, and Playa Bonita is widely held to be the finest on the Samana peninsula.

Why It Works

Two things carry this address, and neither is a spreadsheet item. The first is the architecture, which is genuinely singular in a country where most of the coast was built to a template. The second is the kitchen. Gerard Prystasz, who cooked at the Elysee Palace, runs a French menu built on Dominican produce, served in a semi-open dining room, at a kiosk on the sand, or on terraces lit by kerosene lamps. What convinced us is that those two things pull in the same direction: this is a house built by people with taste, and it is still being run by people with taste.

Why This Location

Playa Bonita sits west of Las Terrenas, around the headland, and it is the quieter beach by some margin: a long curve of sand with a reef offshore, coconut palms behind it and very little built on it. Las Terrenas town, with its restaurants, its market and the row at Pueblo de los Pescadores, is a few minutes by road, close enough for an evening out and far enough that you do not hear it. El Limon waterfall and the boats for Cayo Levantado and the bay are the usual day trips. The trade is straightforward: you are not in town, so a car or a motoconcho matters, and in exchange you get a beach that empties out by four in the afternoon.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: Bohemian, architectural, barefoot, literary

• Rooms: Eighteen, all different, sleeping two to five, named for places around the world, most with sea views and a balcony or terrace, marble bathrooms throughout

• Best For: Couples, food-led travellers, architecture enthusiasts and families needing a room for four or five

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: Dinner on the terrace under kerosene lamps, cooked by a chef who came from the Elysee Palace

• Dining: French cooking adapted to Dominican produce, served in a semi-open dining room with a bar, at a kiosk on the beach, or on the lamp-lit terraces

• Amenities: Direct beach frontage, garden, library, massage and spa treatments, pets accepted

• Attractions: Playa Bonita (at the door), Las Terrenas and Pueblo de los Pescadores by road, El Limon waterfall, Samana bay and Cayo Levantado

Eighteen Rooms and No Two the Same

Because the houses went up one at a time, the rooms did too. They carry names rather than numbers, Jamaica, Bali, Granada, Hong Kong among them, and they range from doubles to rooms that take five, which is unusual in a property of this character. Most look at the sea, most have a balcony or a terrace, and the bathrooms are marble. What they share is the geometry of the place: rounded walls, deep window reveals, galleries that catch the trade wind. It is worth asking about the specific room rather than the category, because here the difference between one and the next is real.

A Kitchen from the Elysee, on a Beach in Samana

The restaurant is the reason a fair number of guests come back. The cooking is French in method and Dominican in supply, which on this coast means fish landed that morning, tropical produce and a short menu that changes with what arrives. Three settings share it: the dining room, half open to the air, with the bar; the kiosk on the sand for lunch; and the terraces after dark, lit by kerosene. Two things to weigh. This is a hotel without a pool, so the sea is the swimming. And it is a house of character rather than a resort, which is the whole point, but it means the polish is human rather than corporate.