Dorado

Dorado exists because sugar needed administrative order. On November 22, 1842, Jacinto López Martínez petitioned Spanish Governor Santiago Méndez Vigo to formalize what plantation economics had already created—a community dense enough to require its own government. The authorization came with conditions: build a church, construct an administrative building, establish a proper town square. By 1848, the public works stood complete and López Martínez became Dorado's first mayor.

The 19th century made Dorado synonymous with sugar. The Haitian Revolution's disruption of Caribbean sugar production created international demand that Puerto Rican hacendados rushed to fill. Fertile coastal plains and enslaved labor built the plantation system that shaped Dorado's geography—the town grew around sugar, not despite it. When the American Sugar Refining Company arrived after the Spanish-American War, it brought industrial-scale operations and capital that modernized production even as it concentrated ownership.

Dorado's 20th century pivot came from an unlikely source: conservation-minded capitalism. In the 1950s, Laurance S. Rockefeller—Nelson's brother and heir to Standard Oil wealth—acquired a former plantation and built a resort with an unusual philosophy. No building taller than palm trees. Preserved wetlands and archaeological sites. The Rockefeller Trail created walkable sanctuary through natural landscape. This wasn't typical Caribbean resort development; it was ecological preservation monetized through exclusivity.

The Ritz-Carlton Reserve that inherited Rockefeller's vision represents Puerto Rico's luxury apex. The 50-acre property occupies the original Rockefeller estate, featuring TPC golf courses (the East Course reimagined by Robert Trent Jones Jr.), Spa Botánico with treehouse treatment rooms, and the Ambassadors of the Environment program integrating Taíno archaeological sites. Condé Nast Traveler ranked it among the Caribbean's top 10 resorts for 2024. Wine Spectator awarded the COA Restaurant 'Best of Award of Excellence.'

The 2025 season added sea turtle conservation to Dorado's identity. From June through August, guests participate in hatchling releases through partnership with Chelonia Sea Turtle Conservation. The golf courses—named Sugarcane and Pineapple—honor agricultural heritage even as their manicured fairways represent complete economic transformation. Dorado in 2026 embodies Caribbean succession: from enslaved labor to resort service, from plantation extraction to conservation tourism, from sugar baron wealth to Rockefeller philanthropy to Ritz-Carlton luxury.