Strung along a narrow strip of land where the Caribbean Sea meets the Placencia Lagoon, the 22-acre site that Roberto de Oliveira Castro shaped into Itz'ana Resort & Residences in 2017 had to answer to two entirely different bodies of water simultaneously. The Boston-based architect resolved this by distributing the programme across building types — beachfront villas facing the sea, overwater marina villas extending into the lagoon, penthouse residences set back among mature palms — each cluster pitched and roofed in a massing that draws from British colonial Caribbean building tradition and pre-Columbian Maya forms in roughly equal measure. White rendered walls, steep gabled rooflines with exposed dark timber rafters, and deep shaded balconies push against the heat while keeping the buildings in conversation with the landscape rather than above it. Samuel Amoia, working on his first hotel commission, brought a collector's instinct to the interiors. Rooms combine polished concrete floors with woven bamboo ceiling panels, pendant lights in plaited rattan, and rattan lounge chairs that sit closer to 1970s Central American craft than to resort formula. Custom pieces made by local Belizean artisans sit alongside vintage finds, the result a domestic warmth that suits the scale of the villas. In the restaurant, a cathedral of woven matting overhead and a central planted palm set in a bamboo planter give the space the atmosphere of a colonial-era plantation house adapted for the tropics, candlelight pooling across hand-painted cement tile floors and cane-back dining chairs.

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