Turning your childhood home into a thoughtful, beautifully restored, and sustainable hotel that genuinely captures the city—both past and present—isn’t an easy feat. But that’s exactly what the owners of Carlota hotel, Renato Solines and Veronica Reed, have achieved in Quito, Ecuador. The turn-of-the-century house in which the hotel now thrives belonged to Solines’ grandmother Carlota, after whom the hotel is named and fashioned. The “story” came from the winner of a design competition the pair held to create the branding for the hotel. “The designer, Pablo Iturralde talked to my grandmother and came up with a plan. The ‘o’ in the logo is shaped like a suitcase with a Mirlo (Great Thrush) bird on top. The Mirlo is a very special bird in Quito and my grandmother reminded him of this bird,” says Solines.