El Conquistador Resort is located just an hour away from the historic city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. San Juan is one of the most historic metropolises in the Americas. Founded over five centuries ago, it has played a significant role in the history of the "New World." Its first European inhabitants arrived in 1508 under Juan Ponce de León—a conquistador now mainly remembered for his ill-fated explorations to find the "Fountain of Youth" in Florida. Calling the settlement "Caparra," he chose an almost landlocked harbor along Puerto Rico's northern coast to serve as its location. But Spanish colonial officials later relocated the settlement to an inlet a few miles to the east and rechristened it as the "Ciudad de Puerto Rico." Juan Ponce de León continued to call the community home, having served as the island's governor shortly before the town's relocation. Juan Ponce de León and his family lived inside a beautiful estate known among the locals as "Casa Blanca."  

San Juan's location quickly made it one of Spain's most important seaports in the Caribbean, with its wharves ferrying all kinds of goods and people across the ocean. The city even became a major marshaling point for Spanish incursions into mainland North and South America. San Juan gradually assumed great political significance in Spain's global empire. The city served as the Catholic Church's first headquarters on the other side of the Atlantic, as well as at the seat for one of its bishops. Unfortunately, this newfound prosperity attracted the attention of Europe's other major superpowers, who attempted to conquer San Juan and the rest of Puerto Rico over the next 300 years. Those nations legalized pirating against the naval traffic heading into San Juan, which culminated in numerous raids on the city. Some of the most famous assaults transpired under buccaneers like Francis Drake and George Clifford. Spain's rivals tried to directly capture the city with their own navies on several occasions. In addition, the Dutch and the British sent fleets against San Juan in both the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively.   

To deter those aggressive threats, the Spanish constructed many forts across San Juan. The most noteworthy of those defenses were fortified castles known as "La Fortaleza" and "San Felipe del Morro." Yet, the most imposing citadel was the mighty "San Cristóbal." The largest Spanish fort in the Western Hemisphere, it made San Juan one of the most heavily protected cities throughout the entire world.

San Juan's status as an influential colonial settlement gradually declined as other places like Mexico City and Lima grew in stature. San Juan remained isolated from the greater politics of the Spanish Empire by the 19th century, especially the patriotic movements that swept through nearly all the neighboring colonies. Puerto Rico was a bastion for the many loyalists that had fled from the Spanish American Wars of Independence. Puerto Rico remained part of Spain's diminishing empire in the wake of the conflicts, becoming one of its last oversees colonies.   

Spain's sovereignty over the entire island finally ended during the Spanish-American War of 1898. San Juan did not experience any significant fighting, although the guns at San Cristóbal did briefly engage with a flotilla of United States Navy ships anchored just off the coast. Now a territorial capital within the United States, San Juan evolved into a modern metropolis. While early economic growth was slow, numerous industries soon emerged throughout the city toward the latter half of the 20th century. San Juan maintained its local political importance, too, as it continued to be Puerto Rico's capital after it obtained self-governance in 1952. Today, San Juan is among the most popular tourist destinations throughout the Caribbean. Cultural heritage travelers have enjoyed visiting modern-day San Juan, due to the many historical landmarks that reside in the city. San Juan's historic core—known as "Viejo San Juan" or "Old San Juan"—is even identified as both a U.S. National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (The San Juan National Historic Site was a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in 1966.)  

El Conquistador Resort features an amazing blend of Mid-Century Modern architecture. An offshoot of the earlier International and Bauhaus movements, Mid-Century Modern sought to portray a futuristic aesthetic that reflected the popular concepts of civic progress. Professional architects utilized the style from the 1930s to the 1960s, when American society was rapidly undergoing huge transformations—both social and technological in nature. Architects embraced the design ideals of function, simplicity, and rationality to create sleek-looking structures with a communal purpose. Mid-Century Modern designs made explicit use of vertical, flat lines and irregular rectangular shapes that conveyed a lack of formality. Overall ornamentation was abandoned, too, as monochromatic brickwork, steel, and concrete served as the essential building blocks for the exterior. Inside, most of the rooms were subdivided into split levels, giving a sense that the structure had undergone a notable change in elevation. Modernist buildings featured wide, open spaces filled with natural light that represented practicality and comfort. Large windows often functioned as the primary way the architects achieved such a feature. The introduction of spacious windows even sought to better incorporate nature into the design, making the surrounding landscape seem as if it were part of the building.    

The entire resort displays a modern interpretation of Mediterranean Revival style architecture. More specifically, Mediterranean Revival-style architecture was a gorgeous—but peculiar—structural aesthetic. Popular with American architects originally at the height of the Roaring Twenties, its main characteristic was its intrinsic eclecticism. While most Revivalist styles typically mimicked one or two earlier architectural forms, Mediterranean Revival-style took its inspiration from several, including Italian Renaissance, Venetian Gothic, and Spanish Colonial. The amalgamation of so many unique design principles into one singular form was born out of a desire to create exotic buildings that closely resembled the various kinds of historic palaces scattered throughout the Mediterranean basin. As the modern hospitality industry exploded in California during the 1920s and early 1930s, architects—as well as the hoteliers who served as their clients—hoped such an appearance would epitomize the tropical atmosphere of the state. (But they also wished that the style would impress the tourists that had started to head west as a means of escaping the harsh winters of the Northeast, too.) Mediterranean Revival-style architecture was predominantly used to create luxurious hotels and resorts, although some affluent Americans began using the form to construct their own personal homes. Nevertheless, Mediterranean Revival architecture typically relied on a rectangular floorplan featuring grandiose, yet symmetrical façades. Stucco exterior walls and red-tile roofs were the greatest structural elements employed. But American architects incorporated wrought iron balconies into the overall design, along with numerous keystones and arched windows.