I am learning a lot about Nosara in the research I am passively and now actively pursuing. Here is a clip from the business plan I am preparing for another project, which gives you a little more information about this place in which this blog is set:

Nosara:

Nosara is a small, inland Tico village in close proximity to several kilometers of Pacific Ocean beaches. Nestled into the beach zones beside Playa Guiones, a gorgeous white sand beach, picturesque Playa Pelada, and the stunning black sand beach of Playa Nosara, is a small community home to a diverse international population, known as the “American Project”. The village of Nosara provides the American Project with several grocery stores, a top notch medical clinic, a gas station, car rental agencies, the Ebais Medical Clinic, and an airstrip serviced twice a day from international airports in San Jose and Liberia. The international American Project provides hotels, fine restaurants, a national bank, internet service, city lights, a natural aquifer providing immaculate water, two world famous yoga institutes, bakeries, cafes, schools, day care, public libraries, and clinics, just to name a few amenities. Nicoya, a large city about 45 minutes away by car, provides residents of Nosara with access to a full hospital, international bus station, and an undergraduate university, in addition to full size grocery stores and all the other services associated with a city.

The beaches of Nosara are considered by many to be the gems of Guanacaste’s Gold Coast. Unlike many beaches discovered by tourists and sun worshipers, the beaches of Nosara remain in their natural state as national parks and sea turtle refuges. The beaches have remained nearly pristine due to the diligence of active expatriate communities that have maintained a twenty-year environmental campaign preventing large-scale, high-density development that would encroach upon the Maritime Zone of the beaches. The success of these conservation efforts is now world famous and noteworthy in itself.

Not many beach communities in Costa Rica have developed so conscientiously nor are set up to do so in the future, however:
[b]ecause the village of Nosara is several kilometers from the beach, and because most of the land near the beach has been zoned primarily as a residential community, Nosara has been spared the sort of ugly, uncontrolled growth characteristic of many other Guanacaste beaches. All of the hotels here are small and spread out, with most tucked away down side roads. There's none of the hotels-piled-on-top-of-hotels feeling that you get at playas Flamingo, Tamarindo, and Coco. In fact, on first arriving here, it's hard to believe there are any hotels around at all. Nosara has long been popular with North American retirees and a handful of Hollywood celebs, and they too have made sure that their homes are not crammed cheek-by-jowl in one spot, hiding them instead among the profusion of trees that make Nosara one of the greenest spots on the Nicoya Peninsula. If you're looking for reliably sunny weather and a bit of tropical greenery, this is a good bet.
-New York Times, quoting Frommer’s guide.

The town of Tamarindo, once prized for its laid back beauty, is now heavily developed, and criticized for having lost its tropical environment to the greed of developers. Malpais to the south, not five years ago an immaculate beach with hardly 100 year round residents, is now crowded with multi-story buildings obscuring the view and marring the beauty of the land. The preservation efforts and the controlled expansion of the area are just two of the reasons why Nosara is likely to retain its value over the years. Nowhere else on the Guanacaste peninsula are houses and structures mandated to be set back 200 meters from the beaches. Nowhere else in the Guanacaste are greenways and parklands deeded into the development to separate the houses and restrain the possibility of future overcrowding. Only in this section of the Guanacaste exists a united and international community ready to defend the value of not just their land, but their idyllic way of life.

Many foreigners have chosen to make Nosara their home. Executive surfers, outdoorsman, fishermen, investors, vacationers, and retirees contribute to the community. They come from Europe and the Americans. Actors Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins all have homes in Nosara. The Omega Institute is also opening a facility in Nosara. People who look to buy in Nosara are looking for a tropical sanctuary, and not a quick profit. They are invested in the present and future of Nosara.

The American Project:

Directly bordering Playa Pelada, Playa Guiones and Playa Nosara is the “American Project.” The project was begun in the late 1960’s by an American developer, David Alan Hutchinson, from which it gets its name. Hutchinson intended to lay out a golf course community of some 800 lots, but that development was ahead of its time and never finished. The roads, power and water system, however, were put in place, establishing the initial infrastructure for Nosara. While interest in Costa Rica and Nosara simmered, the trees that had been cleared for cattle ranching grew and matured into secondary forest. Early Nosara residents set aside the area originally planned as a golf course and created “green parkland areas,” which today are full of maturing trees, fauna, water ways and wildlife. These natural green corridors meander between subdivided lots of 1/4 to sometimes two or more acres. The area was first populated by nature lovers and isolationists who built modest homes among the woods and enjoyed this serene and unique ocean side setting.

As idyllic as this may sound to some, the beaches of Nosara remained quite remote, isolated and underdeveloped until very recently. The local economy subsisted primarily as a surfing destination due to the consistent waves of Playa Guiones. Recently, bridges were put in place over all the rivers south of the area making year-round access possible from the city of Nicoya. In April of 2003, a new $35 million bridge spanning the Tempisque River opened, shortening the eight-hour drive from the capital, San Jose, to four hours. The opening of a new international airport in Liberia, a two hour drive to the north, has also simplified access and put the beaches in convenient reach and attention of a new generation of residents and tourists.

Today, a new group of people are discovering Nosara. Some newcomers choose to live year round, others rent their homes to grateful tourists or annual visitors. New businesses are opening to offer services to the next generation of nature and ocean enthusiasts seeking an ocean front lifestyle-community. Europeans and Americans alike are finding the town cosmopolitan, serene, and attractive as a retirement and tourism destination. Everyone enjoys the freedom of this unique setting in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The American project is divided into lettered sections.