SANTO DOMINGO – His late grandmother predicted his success when he was just a child. “You’re going to be great. You’ll remember me. Your imagination is extraordinary,” Samuel Losada recalls with a touch of nostalgia. But they also rekindle the conviction of growing up in a family environment where the constant message was that the best path is to keep moving forward like a true warrior, doing things the right way.
Achieving goals in his entrepreneurial journey has not been by chance. “Being persistent, not letting any setbacks discourage me, and keeping going,” is the recipe that the COO of the developer Cruise On Land shares with El Inmobiliario .
During his education at a Catholic school, he learned that discipline is a guiding principle that leads to success, and although he was torn between Administration and Architecture, he studied the latter inspired by his father, whom he observed drawing plans with marked passion.
Born into a middle-class family with a strong vision for expansion, his talents propelled him to become the first entrepreneur to introduce concrete stamping in his native Colombia when he was only 27 years old.
The branch of heaven
This man from Barranquilla landed in the Dominican Republic 24 years ago to work on a large real estate development in the Dominican capital.
His company was at its peak, but the Dominican climate revealed to him that he had arrived at the "branch of heaven," after discovering, in addition, that opportunities abounded here because "everything was yet to be done," and to top it all off, the kindness of its people completely seduced him.
She traveled to Colombia to get married and landed again in Quisqueya La Bella to add new chapters to the Caribbean story.
A productive life
During his internship in his final year of university, Samuel Losada discovered that he enjoyed the finishing touches more than the structure of a project. “I would look at the installation of the floors, the cornices.”.
He recounts that he began making rudimentary molds until he decided to travel to Spain in 1996 to perfect his technique. “At 27 years old, I was the one who brought concrete stamping to Colombia. Nobody had done it in the entire country,” he says.
During his travels in Europe, he observed the gypsum boards used for ceilings, an idea he decided to bring to his city. “But they took five or six days to dry, and I wondered how I could make it faster. One day, I was invited to a brick factory, and I saw how they dried them in kilns, and I said, I'm going to dry these in kilns. And I founded the gypsum factory with kilns; I dried the boards in four to six hours, and I practically took over the Barranquilla market,” he explains.
A legacy of gratitude
After accumulating vast experience in housing projects and successful construction businesses in the country, in 2014 he formalized a partnership with Luis Wolfgang Castillo, under the firm Cruise On Land, a mega urban development that is being built in La Otra Banda, in Higüey, La Altagracia province.
This initiative envisions a theme park with over 100 amenities, more than 4,000 homes, and the construction of the World Trade Center Punta Cana.
Throughout his extensive tour of the country, Samuel has been accompanied by his wife and son, whom he says represent the driving force of his life.
Samuel Losada wants to give back a little to the land that captivated him and has given him so many good and prosperous moments.
“I wish the entire country were full of amusement parks. How is it possible that Orlando has Disney in a place that wasn't ideal? That Las Vegas, in a desert, has all that growth, while the Dominican Republic, which is a slice of heaven, isn't full of amusement parks?”
Article originally published in issue 14 of El Inmobiliario print (March-May 2026).
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