Uxua Casa Hotel & Spa

Why book?

For global design-savvy guests and fans of the rustic, barefoot days of early jet-set travel, to surf, hang out in linens, eat organic, shop for crafts and immerse themselves in Brazil’s most Afro-Brazilian state in a way that is planet forward, inclusive, artisanal and authentically local.

Set the scene

UXUA is not just a place to stay, but an up-cycled craft community with a profound sense of place, showcasing the work of local indigenous Pataxó and Afro-Brazilian artists and artisans whose handiwork is in every corner of every room. But its muse and raison d’être is, without doubt, Trancoso: One of Brazil’s oldest and prettiest colonial towns, it is only an 80-minute drive from Puerto Seguro airport in southern Bahia, near the place where Portuguese ships first landed in Brazil in 1500. The stout bull-white form of São João Batista church, the second oldest in Brazil, overlooks the rolling Atlantic. A fishing village which became a sleepy surf town with counter cultural roots, it was first awarded UNESCO status and then the unofficial moniker of “the Tulum of Brazil” after UXUA transformed the Quadrado, a formerly scruffy rectangular parade of bungalows, painted the colours of tropical fruits and exotic birds into Brazil’s place to be and raised the work of local artisans with Das’s acclaimed designs. Lit at night by candles and lanterns in the tropical almond trees, today the Quadrado is an high-end enclave of wall-to-wall restaurants, açai juice bars, design stores and independent boutiques selling crafts, hammocks, recycled jewellery, crocheted bikinis and boho robes fit for lounging around UXUA’s pool and beach club along with a likeminded global crowd (who might otherwise be clad in Zimmerman).

The backstory The painted blue wood and adobe simplicity of São João Batista church became a design reference for UXUA Casa Hotel and Spa when it was opened in 2009 by Dutch designer Das and American marketing honcho Bob Shelvin - now an environmental activist. (Das first came to Trancoso in 2004 and started buying up fishermen’s houses behind the Quadrado, initially just for friends.) UXUA was to be both a guest house and a new creative outlet for the duo, an antidote to their deadline-obsessed, trend-driven, planet-polluting work at Italian jeans brand Diesel. The result was a solar-powered retreat in which it felt time had stopped: A paen to the beauty of slow, respectful, immersive travel offered by magical homestays and guesthouses, as well as the simple Bahian design vernacular, and the era when barefoot travellers first discovered Trancoso.

In the 1970s, the so-called Biribandos - a wave of hippies and artists from São Paulo and Rio De Janeiro - came here to escape the glare of Brazil’s ruling military regime. When (it is rumoured) Janis Joplin came here to get clean, before her final tour, Trancoso was a mix of fishermen, hippies, artists and Pataxó, “A bit like Saint Tropez in the 1950s,” says Shevlin. “The fact that the place was introduced to modernity by hippies and not real estate investors shaped it. The locals ate brown rice before potato chips. The first restaurant that opened in Trancoso was a macrobiotic cafe.” Gulab Mahal, a vegetarian Indian restaurant set up by hippies, was the first place Das bought in Trancoso, which became one of UXUA’s original rentable casas (there are now 15, for the most part within the Quadrado), along with Terraco de Ceu, the atelier of ceramicist João Calazans, known as Calá- an original Biribando whose fish-print terracotta tiles, clay figurines and vases still decorate the hotel.

The rooms: Casas wholly deliver on today’s oft-bandied promises of ‘individually designed’ and ‘handmade’. Each casa is entirely different, dependent on its size, layout and backstory, with one, two and three bedrooms. Swerving conventional concepts of faceless, placeless design and “luxury”, they are all intentionally rustic with the kind of nooks, crannies and idiosyncrasies of guesthouses.

Furniture is up-cycled: Some beds are made from the back of humble old Brazilian trucks. Branches turn into lamps and shower heads, while reclaimed hardwoods become chairs, desks and tables. Bathrooms use coloured polished concrete in the spirit of São João Batista’s rustic adobe. Graphic cushions are the work of Pataxós artists; designs come from traditional body paintings. Luxury comes in the form of giant vases of fresh red ginger lilies in the corner of every room.

There are some showstoppers. The three-suite Casa do Lago has its own snorkelable carp lake, wallpaper hand-drawn by Das and kitchen walls of gold leaf. The bathroom entrance is adapted from a church confessional box. Meanwhile, one-suite Casa da Arvore is a tree house that taps the romance of fantasy shipwreck living - meanwhile, the living room itself is the open, ground floor space with swings, sea chests and a pebble floor. TVs are often hidden - here, in the wall. A pebbled green quartz path, candlelit and unmarked by signs like a yellow brick road, linked houses.

Food and drink

As one would expect, UXUA’s restaurant is an unpretentious affair: Accomplished Brazil-based Chilean chef Guillermo Lozano, an ex-show jumper and gifted raconteur with a passion for the provenance of his produce, alternates between the open-hatched, shack-style kitchen decorated with fresh banana bunches, the on-site beehives, and his guests at tables decorated with wildflowers in Calá’s vases. Alongside fresh flowers, one of UXUA’s true luxuries is fresh fish: Lozano’s blue crab gratin and ceviche with yellowtail amberjack (Olho-de-boi) are standouts, along with his ochre-yellow Bahian Moqueca with fresh octopus, fist-sized prawns and dende oil, which can also be cooked and eaten at UXUA Roça. The new, 50-acre farm grows everything from pink peppercorns, papaya and mangosteen to citric biribiri (used to zing up caipirinhas) using agroforestry and hosts the yearly Organic Festival Trancoso - organised by UXUA featuring 30 Brazilian chefs working with local suppliers, now a fixture on the nation’s conscious-foodie calendar. A new restaurant is coming to Praia Bar on the beach, where Lunar Luau parties are held at full moon. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the original UXUA Lab continues with its vegan experiments with the likes of mead-like hidromiel, cacao and kombucha.

The spa

UXUA’s respect for local knowledge and culture comes into its own in the Vida Spa & Lab, which taps the vast biodiversity of the surrounding Atlantic Forest (a UNESCO biosphere reserve) and the folk medicine and healing practice of the local Pataxó community. Signature massages use organic oils from the Almescar tree, derived from a bioactive resin which acts as a natural insect repellent, curative panacea and incense. There are three treatment rooms and a yoga studio - also used for mixed martial arts and boxing - at the centre of which is a ceramic of Iemanjá, head orisha(goddess) of the Afro-Brazilian fusion religion Candomblé.

The service

Guesthouse hospitality replaces standardised service: the spontaneous hugs and storytelling of local Bahian staff who are encouraged to be themselves. The beating heart of Uxua is, without doubt, Carlos França, the adorably expansive Brazilian host, close friend and right-hand man of Das and Shevlin, who welcomes everyone as if into his own home and sheds genuine tears when they go home (although they always invite him to come and stay).

For families

Toys for children of all ages are provided at the beach lounge. Ages and abilities permitting, other activities include surfing, kayaking, and beach volleyball, as well as the use of a wooden gym.

Eco effort

UXUA has some serious credentials here: It has won numerous awards for sustainable and positive impact tourism over the years. Alongside its recycled design ethos, the hotel runs on solar power, uses its own water wells, composts and aims to be as self-sufficient as possible. Food is homegrown at the new agroforestry project and farm, or bought from local producers. In 2017, UXUA became the first hotel in Brazil to sign up to the ethical UN Global Compact, adopted in conjunction with the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Shevlin sits on the board of multiple environmental action and responsible tourism agencies, including Conservation International Brazil. The brand sponsors a school and facilities for the local sustainable tourism NGO Despertar. In 2025, Das and Shevlin opened UXUA Maré, another positive-impact project featuring three upcycled Brazilian farmhouses, conserving a 15-acre coastal plot of threatened Atlantic Forest.

Accessibility

The organic nature of UXUA’s layout and its use of old fishermen’s houses - some accessed via outdoor staircases - means that it is not an ideal place to stay for wheelchair users. However, houses outside the Quadrado may have better mobility options.