Bello Monte, Caracas — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Bello Monte?

Torre América sets the skyline. The brutalist tower on Avenida Venezuela was finished in 1978 at the edge of the Distribuidor El Pulpo, and its once-yellow windows earned the nickname El Jojoto, which outlived the paint. Below it the Centro Comercial El Recreo, opened in 1995, runs seven floors of shops to a cinema and links into the Gran Meliá Caracas.

The William Phelps Ornithological Collection is not one of these. That bird collection sits in the Edificio Gran Sabana, on the Las Delicias side of the boulevard.

What is the history of Bello Monte?

Two estates held the ground. The land belonged to the Hacienda Ibarra and the Hacienda Bello Monte, joined by a bridge on the old Baruta road that has since gone, on the line the present Calle Baruta follows. Building began in the 1940s.

Bakeries and a few shops served a plainly residential grid, and the boulevard trade then spread south into it, so that hardware stores, garages, and toy shops took over the side streets. One museum never arrived: Oscar Niemeyer drew an inverted pyramid for a cliff at Colinas de Bello Monte between 1954 and 1955, and it was never built.

Where is Bello Monte?

The Guaire marks the south edge. Bello Monte runs up from it to the Boulevard de Sabana Grande, with Los Caobos west and the Quebrada Chacaíto closing it east.