The history of the House of Don David

In 1974, after several visits to Guatemala, David Kuhn, an American from Florida, decided to move to the Petén region and build a small cabin by the lake, just 3 km from the town of El Remate. The locals nicknamed him Don David, “the lost gringo.” David loved the lake, the jungle, the animals, and the friendliness of the people, and he soon decided this was the ideal place to build bungalows and a camping area for tourists. On December 29, 1975, he opened Gringo Perdido, the first jungle accommodations on Lake Petén Itzá.

The first five years of business were promising. Don David married Rosita, a local girl. Gringo Perdido grew rapidly and became well-known. However, as the 1980s dawned, Guatemala was engulfed in an active civil war, and tourists began to feel it was too dangerous to visit the country, especially the jungle areas. By 1984, after three years of almost no visitors, Don David and Rosita sold the inn to a Guatemalan man who still owns it today. Afterward, David briefly contemplated farming corn with Rosita's siblings, but instead decided to move back to the U.S. with Rosita and Kelsey, their then-one-year-old daughter, where he worked in construction. For the next four years, they traveled between their home in Florida and Guatemala, staying four to eight months at a time.

In 1989, political changes began to occur, the civil war wound down, and movements to save the rainforest emerged. Soon, the Maya Biosphere Reserve was established, and tourism improved. Don David and his family decided to try again and in 1990 opened their first bed and breakfast in their partially completed home in El Remate. Adding one or two rooms each year, they officially opened “La Casa De Don David” in 1996, which today features 15 air-conditioned rooms centered around a botanical garden, designed according to the Mayan calendar, and a restaurant overlooking the lake. In 2013, David and Rosita divorced, but both continue to work in the business. Kelsey now lives in New Zealand.