About El Yunque's Rain Forest Inn and your hosts Bill & Laurie

The RainforestInn is an eco-lodge. Ecotourism as the ideal state of Tourism that:

1. minimizes its own environmental impact.
2. funds environmental conservation.
3. funds local community projects.
4. increasesenvironmental & cultural knowledge and intercultural understanding.
5. Is affordable & open to all.
6. We have no air conditioning and save electricity and the burning of the fossil fuels that create it by using as little electricity as possible.
7. We have used re-cycled materials to repair the buildings for the inn.
8. We collect rainwater for drinking (it goes through a reverse osmosis) and bathing.
9. We have as little impact on the surrounding rainforest as possible -- leaving it untouched.
10. Our podcasts "The Sound of the Rainforest" serve to increase environmental awareness.

The land was originally developed by Bill's Uncle David Humphrey. He came to Puerto Rico sixty-five years ago. He was an inventor and designer (some thought a little eccentric but I just thought of him as very cool). The Rainforest Inn is on a 5 acre estate that he originally developed because he liked the view and the small brook that goes through the property. Through the years the property came to be his daughters and then was sold outside of the family and a large chalet styled house was built for an extended family to live together.

The main house survived an onslaught by Hurricane Hugo but the top floor was removed courtesy of hurricane George. For the years following that the property was abandoned until 2003 when I was able to purchase it and bring it back into the Humphrey family again.

My wife and I have always enjoyed having guests and meeting new travelers so we decided to make repairs to the property in such a way that we could rent at least two, maybe three private villas. The original base of the north wing of the house has become our favorite villa with a fire place (it gets cold on winter nights up here). You can see lots more pictures of us and our friends fixing the place up. There are also some pictures recently taken of the view showing Luquillo Beach in the distance. There are also some pictures on flickr.com and soon there will be more.

"Old family estate – hurricane damaged and rennovated"

The middle of the house has the original cedar walled chalet core and that has become the chalet villa with the wondrous smell of cedar and high peaked ceilings.

Every room in the cedar chalet has a view. The chalet has a full kitchen and the Villa has a wet bar with microwave, small refrigerator, toaster and coffee maker. Of course both have full baths and ample space for private entertaining. The villa has a claw foot bath tub in the bathroom and a fire place in the large living room.
The second photo shows me repairing the villa roof from re-cycled timbers of the old house. The inside of the ocean view villa is a spacious suite with a wet bar (an a 1920's era mahogany cabinet) a fire place, a bath room with a claw foot bath tub, stand up shower and a grandiose entertainment area. There are two bedrooms each with queen beds. The picture on the right shows the ocean view bedroom.