12/08/2025
This is a tribute to the late Denise Koechlin— a great lady who knew how best to appreciate the soul of an historic mansion before bringing it back to life. With quiet vision, sensitivity, impeccable taste, and deep respect, she breathed life into Inkaterra La Casona, now considered an exquisite jewel in the heart of Cusco.
In the heart of Cusco, facing Plaza Nazarenas, a 16th-century manor house had fallen silent.
Its walls, worn.
Its corridors, hushed.
Its history, veiled beneath centuries of plaster and paint.
But the legends and the house were still there.
Watching. Waiting.
And then Denise arrived.
Others might have seen only ruins.
She felt a presence.
A whisper.
A home yearning to be reborn.
For five years, she walked its halls with care, with reverence.
She uncovered colonial friezes hidden by time.
She revealed murals that had long slept in darkness.
She breathed light back to carved wood that still remembered touch.
Denise wasn’t trying to build a hotel.
She was restoring life to a place with soul—
a house that had once welcomed Diego de Almagro and Simón Bolívar.
A witness to centuries, waiting to be lived in once again with unprecedented dignity.
This is how Inkaterra La Casona was born.
The first Relais & Châteaux property in Peru.
And perhaps, Denise’s most intimate work.
Today, Denise is gone.
But her spirit lingers in every wall, every detail.
Her sensitivity lives on in each quiet corner.
Her love for the authentic, in every gesture of hospitality.
Because thanks to her, this place is no longer just a building.
It is, once again,
a house with a soul.
