Tatiana Cesso
Condé Nast Traveler recognized Bahias’s Uxua Casa Hotel & Spa as one of best destinations
It’s hard to choose the most sensational resorts in the world but Condé Nast Traveler readers have managed to do it. The publication recently announced the results of its annual Readers’ Choice Awards with Brazil’s Uxua Casa Hotel & Spa recognized as one of South America’s best destination spa resorts.
Surrounded by dense rainforest and teetering high on a ridge overlooking the powder-sand-fringed Atlantic, Uxua fits right into the post-hippie utopia of Trancoso. Working with local artisans, Dutch owner Wilbert Das (Diesel’s former creative director) has turned the hotel into a collection of rustic renovated casas, cottages, an intimate treehouse, and a tribal-inspired spa. All are cloaked by hummingbird-flecked tropical gardens and centered around a pool lined with green aventurine quartz, which, for those not up on their healing crystals, is said to be very therapeutic. Interiors are haute-boho: roomy indoor-outdoor sitting rooms and airy living spaces with dazzling-white walls and muslin-canopied beds, accented with lots of reclaimed wood, antiques, and vintage finds including brightly painted Virgin Mary statuettes. A decked path runs through mangrove forests to the beach, where there are enormous day beds for post-breakfast snoozing and a beach bar fashioned from an old fishing boat—just stay horizontal and another Caipirinha will soon find its way to you.
On the cover of the 2023 Condé Nast Traveler special issue is Casa Anderson, named after its celebrity owner, Anderson Cooper. He is among the growing contingent of home buyers, both Brazilian and international, who have their sights set on owning a vacation property in this beautiful place, originally a fishing village that didn’t have electricity until the 1980s. Characterized by colorful houses, more than half a dozen long stretches of beach, and the Quadrado, the grassy central square featuring ocean views, it was a hippie haven in the 1980s and ’90s.
In 2016, Cooper found a plot of land near the Quadrado and commissioned Wilbert Das, an architect and co-owner of Uxua Casa Hotel & Spa, to build his idyllic escape. Comprising four buildings, the property has three bedrooms and is constructed in a style that’s symbolic of the traditional houses in and around the town. It has a forest green facade coupled with cream-colored colonial doors and features sustainable materials such as reclaimed timber, Brazilian hardwood, clay, and eucalyptus.
When he’s not occupying it personally, the three-bedroom Casa Anderson is the latest available for guests at Uxua Casa Hotel & Spa, suspended above its outdoor living space.
Below are some of the interiors of different Casas at Uxua:
