San Antonio

About San Antonio:

San Antonio covers 16.96 km² in the south of the canton. Escazú district lies to the north, Santa Ana to the west and Alajuelita to the east, while the ridge to the south separates it from Mora and Acosta. The district averages 1,245 metres, well above Escazú centre, and national route 105 runs through it, linking the centre of San Antonio with Escazú and with Alajuelita. A bus line runs from San José through Escazú to San Antonio, and by car the drop to Escazú centre is short before you reach Ruta 27 and the rest of the west of the capital. Above the last houses, dead-end streets turn into trails that climb through pine to Pico Blanco, at 2,271 metres one of the highest summits of the Cerros.

Daily life runs on the schools and the traditions as much as on the commute. The district holds the Liceo de Escazú and the Colegio Técnico Profesional de Escazú, which also runs a night section, along with the Benjamín Herrera Angulo, Juan XXIII, El Carmen and Bebedero primary schools and the Nicolás Masís stadium. The Trapiche de Tite, a family business, has kept its pans boiling cane into tapa de dulce for more than a hundred years. Each April the Feria Nacional de la Tapa de Dulce fills the park and the Plaza del Boyero with marimba, mascaradas and oxcart rides out to the trapiche, and in March the boyeros and their painted carts take over the streets for the Día Nacional del Boyero. In Bebedero, the municipality has bought a lot diagonal to the church for community facilities.

The district carries more history than its suburban streets suggest. The El Trapiche archaeological site points to settlement here from 500 BC to 1550 AD. The church of San Antonio de Padua went up at the end of the 1920s, designed by engineer Guillermo Jiménez Gargallo and built in French bahareque, with neo-Gothic towers in reinforced concrete added in 1937; it was declared a heritage building in 2001. Adobe houses survive along the older streets, and Escazú’s zoning treats the central plaza, its surroundings, the farmland behind it and the trapiches as an area of heritage interest. Higher up, the Zona Protectora Cerros de Escazú, created in 1976, covers the forested hills, and the cooler air up the slope is part of what draws people to build there.

San Antonio grew from 2,581 people in 1950 to 22,554 in 2011, and despite its rural reputation, only about four hundred of them lived in the rural part, almost all toward the hills. The rest fill barrios such as Bebedero, El Carmen, La Nuez, Palo Campana, Santa Teresa, Tejarcillos, Torrotillo and Vista de Oro, plus part of Bello Horizonte. Old Escazú families keep the boyero and trapiche traditions going. Newcomers come for the views, the larger plots and the quieter streets, and Bebedero is where many first-time buyers start.

Houses in San Antonio:

The housing stock changes with altitude. Around the plaza and along route 105, older family houses, some of them in adobe, sit alongside newer builds. Further up, small gated condominiums with a shared pool offer three-bedroom houses of about 170 m², and on steep lots some houses are built down the hillside, entered from the top floor with the bedrooms and balcony facing the valley. The top of the market is mountain-view homes in Escazú on large private lots, where the view and the land weigh as much as the building. Prices run from modest family houses to multi-million-dollar estates, so compare like with like.

Rentals in San Antonio:

The rental market here is mostly apartments. Small units of around 40 m², often priced in colones and sometimes with water, electricity and internet included, suit single tenants and couples. At the other end, furnished apartments in small condominiums of a handful of units sell on the valley view and the fresh air, and these are often priced in dollars. Whole houses for rent are harder to find. If you rent higher up, ask how the street copes with heavy rain and whether the bus reaches it.

Land and Lots in San Antonio:

Lot sizes grow as you climb. Near the centre you can still find small building lots under 300 m², minutes from the plaza, while view lots of 700 m² and more look out over the Central Valley, and residential projects such as Alta Vista sell lots from 900 m². Higher up the slope, zoning moves to agricultural buffer and then to the protected zone of the Cerros, where a farm may carry only a single house and minimum plot sizes are very large. Before you buy, get the land-use certificate from the municipality, walk the access road and find out whether the water connection comes from AyA or from the local ASADA, the community water board.

Quintas and Small Farms in San Antonio:

The quinta has a place of its own in this district: a hillside property with a modest house and, often, a stream or a spring on the land. Some cover a hectare or more and carry two small houses. These properties sit close to or inside the protected hills, which is both their appeal and their main risk. In early 2026 a municipal review found that 25 of the 26 farms it examined inside the Zona Protectora had built without permits, so treat any house on a farm up here as unproven until the permits are in your hands.

FAQ:

• Which San Antonio is this?

  Costa Rica has many districts named San Antonio. This one is district number two of Escazú canton, in San José province, with postal code 10202. Check that the cadastral plan says Escazú, because San Antonio in Desamparados, Alajuela or Belén is a completely different market.

• Can I build a house in the Cerros de Escazú?

  Only within tight limits. The hills have been a protected zone since 1976, and in the upper areas zoning allows at most one house per farm, on very large plots. Ask the municipality for the land-use certificate and the permit history of the exact parcel before you sign, and do not count on being able to subdivide.

• What should I check on a sloping lot in San Antonio?

  Start with the ground. Parts of the hillside, Palo Campana among them, are prone to landslides, and the streams that cut the slope carry setbacks that can take a slice off a lot. Pull the record from the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario) to confirm the owner, the area and any liens, compare it with the cadastral plan, and ask the ASADA or AyA in writing whether the lot can get a water connection.

• How long is the trip into San José?

  It depends on where you are on the slope and on the hour. A bus line runs from San Antonio through Escazú to central San José, and by car you come down to Escazú centre before joining the main roads into the city. Drive it at rush hour before you commit to a house at the top of the district.

• What happens on boyero day and at the tapa de dulce fair?

  In March the Día Nacional del Boyero brings oxcarts and crowds onto the streets of Escazú, and in April the Feria Nacional de la Tapa de Dulce takes over the park and plaza of San Antonio. Both are a big part of local life, but if you are looking at a house on the plaza, expect a few busy weekends a year.