About CASA BENjamin LINDER

Casa Benjamin Linder is located near downtown Managua, Nicaragua. It’s large, tree-filled property is tucked into a quiet neighborhood just two blocks from a main street, giving it a calm sense of privacy while still being accessible.

The Casa is dedicated to the memory of Benjamin Linder; a young engineer from Portland, Oregon who moved to Nicaragua in 1983 to contribute his skills to the popular Sandinista Revolution. He was a clown and a unicyclist who worked with the poor circuses in Managua where he is still remembered fondly today. As an engineer, Ben worked to bring electricity to war zones in northern Nicaragua where U.S.-funded Contra guerillas attacked villages in the dark - electricity made them safer.

After building a successful hydroelectric plant in El Cua, Ben began work on a new plant in San Jose de Bocay near the Honduran border. While measuring a stream near Bocay on April 28, 1987, Ben and two Nicaraguan colleagues, Pablo Rosales and Sergio Hernandez, were ambushed and murdered by the Contra. Although many other international solidarity workers had been killed, Ben was the only U.S. citizen to be killed by the U.S.-funded Contras.

The Casa Benjamin Linder property was purchased in 1988 by a group of U.S. citizens living in Nicaragua who organized demonstrations against the war in front of the U.S. embassy in Managua every Thursday morning. They named the house for their hero and martyr, Ben Linder, and it became a gathering space for U.S. citizens in solidarity with the Nicaraguan Revolution.

When the Contra War ended in 1990, the group began hosting regular Thursday morning educational talks at Casa Benjamin Linder, a practice that lasted for 25 years. The Casa was also home to FUNDECI, which was founded by Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockman to work with the poor. Padre Miguel was a Liberation Theologian and a great lover of Nicaraguan Revolutionary art. In the 1990s when murals in Managua were being painted over in an attempt to erase the Revolution, Padre Miguel commissioned eleven murals at the Casa, included four murals that honor Ben's life.

Today, our vision at Casa Benjamin Linder is to preserve and promote the spirit that led Nicaraguans and international solidarity workers to become a part of the Revolution.

The house is a solidarity center and gathering space where the murals can be appreciated by all, and where we promote Nicaraguan art and family life through regular events like art workshops and children’s theater through our partnership with the Guachipilin Puppet Theater.

Travelers, tourists and solidarity workers staying at the guesthouse support this work, as income generated through guests goes to help cover the Casa’s operating costs.

All of the rooms of the guest house are furnished with unique wood pieces made by local workshop Nicaragua Naturally.

As part of our educational mission, Casa Benjamin Linder offers guests fun, educational tours all over Nicaragua. Why not turn your vacation into an opportunity to learn something about Nicaragua?

Casa Benjamin Linder is operated by the Jubilee House Community and it’s project in Nicaragua, the Center for Development in Central America.