Finca Malinche, a serene getaway on the shores of Laguna de Apoyo, was the brain-child of Etienne Dusart, a Harvard-trained, award winning organic architect who designed and built Finca Malinche as his home. Acutely environmentally aware, his goal was blending the structure into the inner side of the Apoyo volcanic caldera as it sloped down to the edge of the Laguna. Instead of one large, sprawling building, he laid out a meandering series of casas built of local volcanic rock that nestle under the tropical forest canopy and comingle with the rock-strewn slope. Today, with Etienne\u2019s philosophy as a guide, these casas have been updated to private, self-contained guest accommodation with a large gathering place, the Rancho, down at the Laguna shore.<\/p>\n
It is believed that Etienne named his property Malinche after La Malinche, the young, Mesoamerican woman who was the interpreter for the Spanish conquistador, Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9z. She was also his advisor, lover and the mother of his son, Mart\u00edn, likely the first European-Mesoamerican child in the New World. Today, 500 years later, La Malinche lives on in Central American myth and legend as well as in the Malinche, or dwarf poinciana tree, a Mesoamerican native now found throughout the tropics and semi-tropics as a garden plant. Its large, bright red and yellow flowers burst forth flamboyantly during the wet season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Where Gaudi meets the Flintstones Finca Malinche, a serene getaway on the shores of Laguna de Apoyo, was the brain-child of Etienne Dusart, a Harvard-trained, award winning organic architect who designed and built Finca Malinche as his home. Acutely environmentally aware, his goal was blending the structure into the inner side of the Apoyo volcanic … <\/p>\n