Ama Estancia was the project that originally brought us to Panama. The 10,000 square foot residence was designed by Selldorf Architects in New York City, where I worked as the project architect at the time. The European-Panamanian client envisioned a cozy beachside retreat that was both modern and reflective of local design and materials. The design process ran from October 2006 to December 2007. We began construction in March 2008 - when we moved down to Panama for what we originally thought was nine months - and AMA Estancia was fully completed in December 2010.

From the outset of the design process, our team at Selldorf strove to incorporate as many local materials and techniques as possible into the design, such as traditional clay tiles and “tipico” concrete floors. Concrete was a sustainable choice because of its local availability and its insulating qualities for passive cooling. The wall finishes were made by blending clay powder, marmolina and white cement, giving the house a timeless look that blended with the environment.

The site is just steps from the cliffs above Panamaes beach, with sweeping views of the Pacific. The home was organized horizontally with all of the rooms oriented towards the ocean. The entire ocean-facing facade of the home features wooden walls in each room banked by windows, which maximize the view and take advantage of the ocean breeze for passive cooling. These feature walls were crafted from sustainably forested almendro wood (Dipteryx oleifera), commonly known as Brazilian teak - and done in record time by Decolosal in Panama City.

That was one of the only finishes to come along smoothly. As we describe in detail in our post about moving to Panama, structural construction of AMA Estancia had turned our role as project architects on its head. In order to complete the finishes, we were going to have to assemble an in-house team from the same local labor pool of primarily surfers and fishermen. We needed cabinetmakers, concrete finish workers, landscaping crew, a reforestation team and sub-contractors installing all the equipment such as pumps, generators, appliances, telcomm and water treatment plants. As we learned time and time again, if we tried bringing in trained crafts from the city, they couldn’t hack it out in the countryside. It was better to work with the trusted if inexperienced guys we already had. So we began to train those who survived the structural construction in the kind of finishing techniques we needed for the design.

Every install was complicated by the remote location - we were 5 hours from an established supply chain and 45 minutes on a hardly-compacted dirt road from the nearest town of Pedasi, a fishing village of less than 1,000 people. Luckily, what our team lacked in traditional construction experience, they made up for in unique and diverse skills - like being intimidating in the best possible way. One of our guys, Trejos, was a mustached Santeño who after years of working without ear protection, could be heard from across the property. We often tasked him with encouraging delivery drivers to drive the truck all the way to the site during stormy conditions.

Entire days would pass just trying to get shipments from Pedasi to the site. That 45-minute drive became a day's work. There was one particular hill that was so steep and slippery (still is) that a backhoe was needed to push the truck otherwise it could end in the ocean. Delivery drivers were terrified of delivering to our site because of that road (that's where Trejos came in). By the time dusk came, we’d often still be at it painstakingly guiding the trucks - of course the road had no lights so we’d have to light the way with the headlights from our pick-up truck. Many shipments were unloaded in the dark. It was in this way we managed to get floor tiles, doors and the first Sub Zero brand fridge in the peninsula to our site.

Close your eyes and point anywhere in AMA Estancia, and the finish that now looks so seamless and refined has a backstory as to the challenges it took to get here. Those gorgeous doors and windows that Decolosal finished in record time? They needed handles - a lot of them. The house had over 70 doors and we couldn’t find enough hardware in the country for the door levers. The lead time was 6-months to contract them through a local vendor, and we couldn’t wait that long.

This is how we found ourselves back in New York City, at Blueman Hardware on Bowery and Canal in Chinatown. We stood on the sidewalk with six suitcases full of hardware and hailed a cab to JFK. The checked bag fees were nothing compared to what we knew awaited us in import taxes once we picked up the bags at Tocumen airport in Panama City. Our flight landed at midnight, then we had the long wait in immigration, followed by the wait for all those bags, and finally, customs. We were exhausted and anticipated a long process as our bags were scanned. After hearing why we had so much hardware, the customs official stared at us for what felt like an hour and finally said, “go ahead, it’s late and I don’t feel like filling out the tax paperwork.”

We said thanks and drove straight to the site.

It was in this way we MacGyver-ed AMA Estancia to completion. The 9-month construction deadline passed like the wind - we had long ago set aside even the remote possibility of that schedule, one that felt like it was developed in another world entirely from the one we found ourselves working in. The list of new tasks that we had to do was endless, and our role as architects had evolved beyond recognition. It wasn’t that we had just taken on contracting, reforestation and hospitality - we had come to own the outcome of this project in a holistic way. We had stopped counting the delays, but rather leaning into the possibilities more time offered us. We were building a lake, designing furniture from found wood, commissioning rogue seed gathering missions in the remote jungle.

Our first year in Panama came and went, and at last the first occupancy deadline at AMA Estancia was set for Christmas 2009: 18 months after the start of construction and twice as long as originally planned. Nearly all projects require a herculean push at the end to ‘finish’. With this one, we had faced so many challenges along the way that we felt confident that we were finally in good shape. Through two years of trial, error and training, we had a strong and robust team. Everyone was dedicated and wore several hats, quick on their feet to troubleshoot and push through the challenges that still seemed to multiply as the calendar days ticked down towards Christmas.

We were close, and the excitement on site was palpable - despite some substantial hang-ups - like the fact that we still didn’t have power on the property. The generator finally arrived just 10 days before the owner's arrival. Then we discovered that the hot water pipes were not connected correctly to the shower mixers. The kitchen was not operational until the day before the owners arrival – again, another late-night delivery of the appliances.

Andres Moratoya was a talented chef in town who we befriended and quickly added to our team. He came on board to oversee the kitchen install and serve as the Chef to the clients. He would go on to become our hospitality manager for several years - a role he first took up in those chaotic days leading up to first occupancy. We hired a cleaning staff and showed them the store room full of equipment - only to realize they’d never seen a vacuum cleaner, much less a rotary iron. It was Andres who ran from the kitchen to teach them how - to all of our amusement - when we saw him demonstrating how to vacuum in his Chef’s whites.

Horacio José Peralta Pineda (who goes by ‘Kusy’) - was a local surfer that we hired to join the team after meeting him on the beach. Kusy had begun to emerge as a leader during our reforestation effort, which he took to heart, undergoing his own transformation into an environmentalist. He was now managing the forest and running our recreational programs, giving surf lessons to the owners and guests.

So many invaluable people on our team had stretched, learned and grown to help us complete a design unlike anything that preceded it in the area. More than a handful of whom are still working with us today.

We will never forget the moment we connected the generator and saw the house with lights on, all of us standing on the lawn with our hard work glowing back at us for the first time. The happiness of that moment is indescribable. Finally, after over a year of trial and error and surmounting new challenges on this wild piece of land, we were able to appreciate the project and see it in all of its beauty, and all its imperfections that eventually got fixed (mostly). The owners were very pleased and grateful to be able to “camp” at the house and not too upset about showering with cold water (sorry again). Their encouragement and enthusiasm made everybody feel energized to properly finish the house, a metric we wouldn’t formally achieve until many years later.

First Occupancy: AMA Estancia

To see AMA Estancia glow at dusk, you would never know the dark days it took to reach this threshold. Nine months delayed and still with just minutes to spare, the client arrives for their first stay at AMA Estancia.

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