It was the airplane of headaches—rotted in an airfield, it sat unwanted by its owner, and caused his mind more than a slight disorder.
Because he feared the 59-year-old decommissioned Boeing 727 might be used by terrorists, he turned around and sold it to someone for $1 to become a beachside suite in the jungle with a view of the water.
Until that sale, the plane had sat parked between two runways at Juan Santamaría International Airport in Costa Rica where, for over 15 years, the stripped-down aluminum airframe was used for simulated fire drills with flaming rubber tires standing in for jet fuel fires.
The airport didn’t seem to know or care the identity of the owner, who happened to be an Indian man who lived in New York.
Before him, the Boeing was first owned in 1965 by South Africa Airways and kept until 1980 before being sold to Avianca, Columbia’s national air carrier. It eventually landed in the hands of aforesaid New York owner. Around 2001, he began to worry when terror struck the U.S. and began running amok all over.
He worried that terrorists might be “potentially using that wrecked plane as a place for a terrorist attack,” Allan Templeton, the man who bought the plane from said owner, told The Epoch Times. “It was quite easy to hide there and have some sort of terrorism attack at the airport.”
In 2006, the owner happily turned the aircraft over to Mr. Templeton, 69, who runs Hotel Costa Verde in Manuel Antonio, selling it for nothing but offering a receipt for $1.
“He just said, ‘Sure, I’ll give it to you guys, no problem,’” Mr. Templeton said. “So it worked out very well.”
At the airport, Mr. Templeton had it de-riveted and separated into enormous cylindrical pieces and shipped piece-by-piece on an 18-wheeler, before hoisting each piece by crane onto his property for reassembling. He would rebuild it as a suite for his stable of Costa Rican hotels, an endeavor that would cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When the work was complete and his first guests arrived at his 727 “fuselage jungle canopy suite,” in 2008, Mr. Templeton was anxious they might not be happy. His woes proved unfounded: “Everybody’s really happy. They like it,” he said. “The location is excellent.”
The apex looms stark against the bright sky, surrounded by jungle on all sides. The hulking airframe is held up by three great pedestals of poured concrete supporting it where the landing gears should be.
Amazingly, and perhaps somewhat alarmingly, the large aluminum cylinder just rests there and isn’t built in. It was chained to the concrete “like a wild animal,” the owner said.
About 200 steps zig-zag up, climbing to a rich and warm teak wood patio where the wings would be. A generous, slanted roof gives plenty of shade. The jungle is alive with calls, barks, cries, and monkeys. Lots of monkeys.
It has a cozy treehouse feel. Only bigger.
Inside the aircraft, it’s surprisingly roomy, very unlike what you'd expect from typical airliner travel—with its compact units stowing compact luggage, compact upholstery stowing compact people, all crunched together in compact discomfort.
No discomfort in this airplane suite.
The roominess inside owes to its ingenious rebuild.
Where you stand inside is well below where the old flight deck (floor) would be. Now you stand on the very base of the lower level, in the hold where the baggage did go. With that extra space, the ceilings are 10 feet high. Air travel suddenly seems a lot more like luxury.
So many years of disuse have made the 727 something of a Frankenstein’s Monster. Planes get picked apart for big money all the time, to furnish more flightworthy planes where they need furnishing, Hotel Costa Verde’s 727 suite was not spared.
She has little tail left—it was scavenged for parts—though that hardly matters anymore.
“The tail’s back in the jungle, so you can’t see it anyway,” Mr. Templeton said. The cockpit, he added, had no seats, “so I brought in some 737 seats, which are exactly the same, from Argentina.”
Guests are free to buckle in where the pilot or copilot would sit and marvel at the monkeys outside.
When its wings were removed to go on some other 727 and left two big, useless stubs, Mr. Templeton had the notion of installing balconies, which lent well to the breathtaking Costa Rican view.
Even the porthole windows aren’t original—his 727 originally had none—but were bought by him, shipped in, and mounted to give the suite the true air travel feel. A landing gear installed under the cockpit adds a nice touch.
Two bedrooms welcome guests with warm wooden walls. A kitchen, or galley, is housed in the airframe’s strong superstructure, the transept of the plane, where the wings join the fuselage. The bathroom and shower are tucked in the tail.
Most of the hundred guests who come each year are American families visiting—probably because U.S. visas are so difficult to get and are needed to visit Costa Rica. The American region also traditionally had been extremely expensive to visit, until government regulation abated and free competition opened up airline flights.
Some travelers have stayed here to create content, which has brought Mr. Templeton many headaches. Drone flyers have clambered onto his roof, and influencers have claimed the suite is their own, built by their own hands.
“We put up signs: ‘Not allowed to climb on the roof,’ but we didn’t put any obstacles or anything,” he said. “But at least if they fall off and kill themselves, they can’t tell us that we didn’t tell them.”
“I mean, it’s really crazy,” he said. “Those were some of the initial efforts to appropriate my project, so they can attract attention to themselves, maybe even sell real estate or something.”
Mr. Templeton moved to Costa Rica in 1979. He got into coin collecting and, later, farming and exporting exotic plants. That grew into a business until he had 200 employees, until he sold his farm in 2000 to start the hotel that now has his Boeing.
His inspiration for aviation?
The Boeing idea was found inside Forbes.
“They published an article about a man in Tennessee who was taking old 727 airframes,” he said. “That’s where I got the inspiration to put my plane on several pedestals.”
Mr. Templeton, who hails from Connecticut, fell in love with Costa Rica in his 20s while serving in the American Peace Corps and has always been a go-getter, turning dreams into reality.
“I opened my hotel in 1988 with three rooms,” he said, speaking of what grew to 50 rooms and then took in his plane. “This is what I love to do. I’m an entrepreneur. I love to build projects, and my preferred venue is the jungle.”
