Location
Lima, Peru

Barranco is Lima’s bohemian revival neighborhood, a vibrant district that is home to many of Peru’s best-known artists, musicians, designers and photographers, as well as the elegant boutique Hotel B. The area emerged a century ago as a fashionable seaside community filled with grand Belle Epoque and Republican style houses along landscaped parks and graceful avenues. The ornate, whitewashed hotel was a Belle Epoque mansion built as a summer retreat in 1914 with Italian marble and exotic woods, an ornate facade, high ceilings featuring teatinas (a unique style of local skylight), open balconies and expansive terraces. The hotel’s restoration, including sumptuous living rooms, a classic library, a charming enclosed central patio and rooftop lounge, set a new high standard in historic restoration in Lima and beyond.

With an enticing art collection gracing the hotel’s interior spaces, exterior views from individual rooms look toward historic streets or the inner garden. Plush king beds are complemented by a deep couch, writing desk, vintage armoire and an en suite, white marble and glass bathroom with a powerful rain shower and private toilet. Amenities include free Wi-Fi, local phone calls, a minibar stocked with local and international flavors, plasma television with HD channels, iPod docking station and natural hair and body products that evoke the mansion’s original fig tree.

Hotel B’s restaurant, bar and lounge are noted for exquisite Peruvian cuisine and a sense of Old Lima. The chef features traditional techniques to create contemporary Peruvian classics using fresh local ingredients from his own farm near the pre-pyramids at Pachacamac and nearby Pacific waters. Guests are encouraged to partake in the daily ritual of el lonche, a lingering teatime vestige of English influence, for Italian coffee, green and black teas, homemade Peruvian hot chocolate, fresh seasonal fruits and traditional sweets.