Costa Rica snagged Warwick and Barbara Lowe, two self-proclaimed gypsies who have worked together during their 30-year marriage running boat charters in the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as upgrading and managing a dive resort off the coast of Belize. The Lowes knew they wanted to settle down—a little—and visiting Costa Rica in 1996 had given them a taste for what locals and the tourist industry call pura vida, or the country’s pure life. So the couple drove the country’s 780-mile Pacific coastline, from Nicaragua to Panama, to find their perfect spot.

Literally halfway, they found it: a high ridge above a surfing enclave called Dominical. “[Real estate prices] in the North had gone crazy,” says Warwick. “It was less expensive here, and we were able to buy five to six acres.” They learned the ropes of property acquisition and building, and had their dream home completed in a year. Meanwhile, Barb, an avid shopper, was developing a nose for where to find local furniture makers, craftsmen, and artists. Their home rapidly became an unofficial showcase for high-quality works, and Barb found herself helping other expatriates acquire the kinds of goods she’d discovered. Further, the Lowes found that designing, building, and outfitting their own home was something they wanted to do again, so they sold their first dream house and brought their current home into being on a nearby lot.

For the Lowes, retirement has become a shared pursuit of creating nests and feathering them. The two are already plotting a third dream house, and might even sell the current one with all the furniture included. It is hardly a slowdown from their previous work together. “We know what we’re doing six-and-a-half days of the week,” Warwick says. “It needs to be retirement with a purpose. If you don’t pursue something down here, you’ll find yourself drinking earlier and earlier in the day.”

This expatriate-flavored joke does apply—particularly to life on the coasts where paradise, with its quiet pace and relative isolation (San Jose is three to four hours away by narrow mountain roads) can wear thin. And while the Dominical area is currently undergoing a huge real estate boom (the northern coast has already developed to the point of saturation—areas like Quepos are full of gringos and high rises), locals will tell you that most retirees probably enjoy being a little closer to the action in the central valley that holds San Jose.

¿Habla Espanol?
Fifteen years into their Costa Rican life, Rich and Jean Redmond have the balance worked out. The Washington, D.C., natives moved south in 1991 for Jean’s work, and six years later they both officially retired. With a large home in a lovely neighborhood just 15 minutes from downtown, the Redmonds spend time staying active in political and social clubs, particularly the Rotary, which has a strong presence in human services and fundraising. When they feel like stealing away to their adopted country’s best beaches, they head out to a small condo they bought a few years ago, on the northern Pacific coast.

For the Redmonds, integrating thoroughly into their community has played a major role in their happiness in Costa Rica. Both fluent in Spanish, they chose a neighborhood with mostly native families, and they participate in regular social events with their neighbors. Speaking the language has also allowed the couple to feel confident in dealing with everyone from builders to shop clerks.

That’s an important point. Often expatriates who cling to English not only feel isolated from local culture, but also feel unjustly suspicious about simple transactions, says Christopher Howard, longtime expatriate and author of The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica (2007, Costa Rica Books). “Frankly, you will be disadvantaged, handicapped, and be considered a foreigner to some degree without Spanish,” Howard says, adding that Costa Rica is full of excellent conversational language schools if Spanish wasn’t your forte in high school.

Brenda Wright’s Spanish, tinged with the Southern drawl of her Texas
girlhood, may not be Penélope Cruz-perfect, but it gets the job done.
For Brenda, Costa Rica brought a new and exciting chapter to an already
full life she maintained in the U.S. with her husband, entrepreneur Hal
Wright. A long-established author and consultant on fitness, Brenda
took advantage of Costa Rica’s decent (and improving) Internet
infrastructure to keep up her working life when the couple relocated to
be closer to Hal’s latest project—a massive real estate development on
the Pacific Coast.

The Wrights chose a beautiful site high above San Jose, and
built their gracious hacienda-style home with plenty of room for
entertaining, as well as workspace for both of them. Like Barb Lowe,
Brenda found that her excellent eye brought her new business. Working
with the prestigious Savannah School of Art and Design in the United
States, Wright has created a thriving, full-service decorating arm of
her husband’s company, where new homes come with full sets of
furniture, linens and even artwork.

Wright says she loves the challenge of her new, second career,
and also enjoys the ease of traveling back and forth to the U.S. for
business, including next-to-no time change (Costa Rica is on Central
Standard Time).

Orchids for $1

Is every expat as busy as these couples? Where are the drop-it-all-and-golf-once-in-a-while retirees? They are here and there. Americans can live on a fixed income (with modest housing, a couple can live quite well on $2,000 a month), and many do. The only thing that isn’t easy for expatriates in Costa Rica is working for someone else—aside from teaching English, being an employee is prohibited, although savvy expats can set up independent businesses and “consult.” But no matter how much you think you’re going to take it easy in Costa Rica, the country just seems to bring out the entrepreneur in everyone.

Darrylle Stafford knows the feeling. A successful attorney from Laguna Beach, Calif., Stafford relocated in 1994 after a brushfire destroyed his home, his art collection—nearly everything he owned. With two suitcases, a laptop, and one small bronze statue that survived the fire, Stafford followed his gut instinct and booked a flight for Costa Rica to start a new life. As he got his feet on the ground, he realized local real estate deals were often compromised by weak title searches and lax legal services. With the help of some trusted local partners, Stafford began doing his own title work in San Jose and, like many expatriates, found himself developing a cottage industry that thrived. Stafford founded First Costa Rican Title and Trust in 2002, but is looking forward to a “retirement” chapter in his life. To retire? Quite the contrary. First, Stafford wants to develop “cluster housing,” a Northern European spin on communal living that he sees as being an excellent option for older retirees who want independent living but can benefit from shared resources. Second, he has begun small development projects with Nicaraguan families, and wants to create a foundation to further this work.

For Stafford, Costa Rica offers enough creature comforts (“Where else can you get a vase full of exotic flowers for $1.60?” he asks), provides him with outstanding private medical care at bargain prices, allows him to breathe clean air and eat a diet rich with fruits and vegetables, and gives him the chance to enjoy a stable democracy that is a comfortable distance from the mounting political and environmental issues in the U.S. “If things get even tighter with oil [in the U.S.],” he says, “we are so well-positioned here. I walk everywhere. My food comes from local sources, and isn’t transportation-dependent.” Costa Rica, which abolished its army in 1948, remains at peace, and enjoys the fruits of a long history of U.S. aid during the Cold War. Storms, both metaphorical and literal, tend to pass over this small, peaceful country.

But what gives Stafford his greatest joy is his life with the locals. “You will find no better people,” he says, and indeed, Costa Ricans are often referred to as the country’s greatest natural resource.

 

From B&B to Bamboo House

Johanna and Mike Bresnan know how Stafford feels firsthand, as they both have deep roots in the region; Mike worked for the Peace Corps there in the 1970s. Although the Bresnans married and lived together in California’s Marin Country for many years, they knew that humanitarian work in Central America would bring them back, and it did. After years of running medical, dental and rebuilding trips to war-torn Nicaragua, the Bresnans gave in to their destinies and resettled in Costa Rica in 1989. They began restoring a contemporary house with Asian influence, adjoining a coffee plantation just 40 minutes northwest of San Jose’s airport, and as they hosted guests by increasing numbers, they evolved into innkeepers. Then, as they expanded their inn with gracious outbuildings, they became builders and developers. But if you ask the Bresnans where they are headed with their lives, the conversation lands squarely on one theme: what they can do to improve life in Costa Rica for the locals, for the land, and for future generations.

From their perch at Vista del Valle, now a luxurious inn with adjoining homes that can be purchased, then rented through the inn’s hotel services, the Bresnans work closely with neighboring Costa Ricans to develop more opportunities locally for everyone. On the top of their list: a new artisan workshop and studio, where local young people can develop skills in high demand, such as furniture building, or iron work. They are also developing new bamboo farming projects with farmers whose coffee or cattle holdings are too small to be competitive, and too harsh on the environment. The Bresnans have even built what they call the Bamboo House, the newest small house for rent on the property, to showcase the way this excellent building and decorative resource can be utilized locally.

“We could be doing this to cash out some day,” says Mike. “But we’re doing it for three generations forward.” He and Johanna joke about maintaining their hippie values from decades past, but there is nothing more modern than the Bresnans’ clear awareness of what purpose this time in their lives holds, as well as how lucky they are to be living in a country with such riches, and what they can—must—do not only to preserve it, but also to enhance it.

Retirement?

Si.