Coffee is in the blood Selva Negra's owners. Mausi and Eddy Kuhl spring from five generations of coffee planters.Mausi's and Eddy's ancestors immigrated to the New World from the German Empire in the late 1800s. They were part of a wave of European immigrants who responded to a call from the Nicaraguan government for help in developing the coffee industry. The Europeans settled down and courted Nicaraguans.
Selva Negra was founded by one of the new planters, Hans Bosche. The property was sols to the Kuhls in 1975. Originally the Kuhls built a few homes in preparation to subdivide the land as individual lots, but people showed more interest in renting rather than buying. Over time the Kuhls built more lodgings and the resort was born.
Eddy and Mausi eventually hired architects to design the main lodge. The firm returned with a design for a multiple-story concrete bunker that was entirely out of character with the natural landscape. Eddy and Mausi wanted a building that would blend into the mountains and reflect their German ancestry. A toy train station set inspired them to design the building themselves. The current lodge is the result of the day they spent playing with a model train set.