1. History
    Design and construction  Early Years  Revolution 

2. Famous guests

3. Hill of Taganana

4. Gallery

5. References

6. External links

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is a historic Spanish eclectic style hotel in Havana, Cuba, which opened in December 1930. Located on the sea front of the Vedado district, it stands on Taganana Hill, offering a commanding views of the Malecón, Havana Harbor, and the city.^[1]

History

Design and construction

The Parti pris of the Hotel Nacional is unique. Based on two Greek crosses, the majority of the rooms have a view of the ocean. The 6 typical floors have 74 rooms and 63,641 sq. ft. of floor area. The eight floor (top floor) has 66 rooms and an area of 50,325 sq. ft. The footprint of the building measures approximately 523' x 265'. The structure is a steel frame, while the decorative elements including ground floor details, columns, wall facings and much of the paving, are covered in coral stone.^[2]

The hotel was developed by the U.S. engineering firm of Purdy and Henderson, and designed by the New York architecture firm of McKim, Mead and White in a mix of styles including Sevillian, Roman, Moorish and Art Deco. The Palladian style entrance portico[https://architecturestyles.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/copy-of-img_8025.jpg] has two stylized column capitals and quoins of coral stone.^[3] The hotel was financed by the National City Bank of New York.^[4]

The hotel was constructed in fourteen months on the Hill of Taganana, the site of the Santa Clara Battery, which dates back to 1797. Part of the battery has been preserved in the hotel's gardens, including two large coastal guns dating from the late 19th Century.

Early Years

The hotel opened as The National Hotel of Cuba on December 30, 1930, operated by the American managers of the Plaza Hotel, Savoy-Plaza Hotel and Copley Plaza Hotel,^[5] at a time Cuba was a prime travel destination for people in the U.S.

In 1933, after Fulgencio Batista's 4 September 1933 coup against the transitional government, it was the residence of Sumner Welles, a special envoy sent by U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to mediate the crisis, and was the site of a bloody siege that pitted the officers of the Cuban army, who had been instrumental in the overthrow of Gerardo Machado (August 12. 1933), against the non-commissioned officers and other ranks of the Cuban army, who supported Batista. Their eventual assault on the hotel, on October 2, 1933, caused extensive damage to the building, including shell and bullet holes, and would become known as the Battle of the Hotel Nacional of Cuba.

Chicago developer Arnold Kirkeby acquired the hotel in the early 1940s and operated it for over a decade as part of his Kirkeby Hotels chain. In December 1946 the hotel hosted the Havana Conference, an infamous mob summit run by Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and attended by Santo Trafficante Jr., Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia, Vito Genovese and many others. Francis Ford Coppola memorably dramatised the conference in his film The Godfather Part II.

In the mid-1950s, Kirkeby Hotels sold the Nacional to New York developer William Zeckendorf.^[6] By 1955, Lansky had managed to persuade Batista to give him a share of the Nacional. That same year Pan Am's Intercontinental Hotels Corporation bought the hotel from Zeckendorf. Alphons Landa, prominent Washington attorney represented Pan Am and arranged for other clients and friends to acquire shares in the hotel’s ownership at the same time. Dave Beck, President of the Teamsters and Roy Fruehauf of the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation were silent partners for at least 2 years. Fruehauf would sell his interest in the hotel in May 1957; other investors would lose everything when Castro came to power.^[7] Lansky planned to take a wing of the 10-storey hotel and create luxury suites for high-stakes gamblers. Batista endorsed Lansky's idea even though there were objections from American expatriates such as Ernest Hemingway. Under Lansky's impetus, a wing of the grand entrance hall was refurbished to include a bar, a restaurant, a showroom and a luxurious casino. It was operated by Lansky and his brother Jake, with Wilbur Clark as the front man.^[8]

The new wing of the hotel, consisting of Wilbur Clark's Casino Internacional, the adjoining Starlight Terrace Bar, and the Casino Parisién night club (home of the Famous Dancing Waters), opened in 1956 with a performance by Eartha Kitt,^[9] who became the hotel's first black guest.^[10] The casino and clubs were an immediate success. According to an unpublished article sent to Cuban Information Archives around 1956-57, "The bar was tended by local bartenders, and the casino managed by gentlemen from Las Vegas."^[11] By the spring of 1957 the casino, sublet by the hotel for a substantial rent to Lansky, was bringing in as much cash as the biggest casinos in Las Vegas. In late 1958 the casino was sold to Michael McLaney and Carroll Rosenbloom.

Revolution

Following the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, Havana's casinos were briefly shut down, but were quickly reopened after protests by casino workers left out of work. Fidel Castro nationalized the hotel on March 20, 1960 and finally closed the casino in October 1960, almost two years after his overthrow of Batista.

There is a museum in the hotel's gardens dedicated to its role in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when anti-aircraft guns were set up on the site of the Santa Clara Battery and an extensive series of tunnels were built under the property, which are now open to the public on guided tours.^[12]

After years of neglect due to the reduction in tourism following the revolution, the hotel was mainly used to accommodate visiting diplomats and foreign government officials. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 forced the Cuban communist party, anxious for foreign exchange reserves, to reopen Cuba to tourists.

Famous guests

In 1956, singer Nat King Cole was contracted to perform in Cuba and wanted to stay at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba but was not allowed to because he was black. The hotel had earlier turned away Joe Louis, Marian Anderson, Jackie Robinson and Josephine Baker.^[10] Cole honored his contract, and the concert at the Tropicana was a huge success. The following year, he returned to Cuba for another concert, singing many songs in Spanish. There is now a tribute to him in the form of a bust and a jukebox in the Hotel Nacional.

Jean-Paul Sartre stayed at the hotel just after the Revolution in 1960, with his wife, the philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir.^[13] The couple interviewed Che Guevara and Sartre wrote 'Sartre visits Cuba', which was published in Havana in 1961, narrating his experiences. The hotel has since named the room he stayed in after him.

In its 80+ years of existence, the Hotel Nacional has had many important guests, including artists, actors, athletes and writers such as Winston Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Jimmy Carter, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Keaton, Jorge Negrete, Agustín Lara, Rocky Marciano, Tyrone Power, Rómulo Gallegos, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre, Yuri Gagarin, scientist Alexander Fleming, Minnesota (United States) Governor Jesse Ventura,^[14] and innumerable Ibero-American Heads of State and European monarchs.

Hill of Taganana

The Santa Clara Battery was built on top of a hill which was home to one of the most historic caves on the island. The hill of Taganana, located in the coastal outcrop of Punta Brava near the cove of San Lázaro took its name from a cavern in the Canary Islands where the princess Guanche Cathaysa took refuge. She was captured and sold by the Castilians as a slave in 1494. The 7-year-old Guanche girl from Taganana (in Santa Cruz de Tenerife) was taken captive along with four other youngsters (Cathayta, Inopona, Cherohisa and Ithaisa). Cathayta was sold as a slave with her companions in Valencia, in April 1494. It is believed that after this she spent the rest of her life somewhere in Spain as a Menina for some woman of the Spanish high society.^[15]

In Cuba, in a parallel legend that states that one of the caves under the Taganana hill served as a shelter for a Cuban Indian girl of the same name who fled from her Spanish persecutors.

The Cuban novelist Cirilo Villaverde immortalized Guanche Cathaysa in his literary work, 'La Cueva de Taganana'.^[1]

Gallery

References

External links

• Hotel Nacional official website
• hotel website en espanol
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=msRkx3d7FGE Cathaysa La niña guanche]

• Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach
• Wilhelm Friedrich Hemprich
• Wilhelm Friedrich Herschel
• Wilhelm Friedrich Hertenstein
• Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht
• Wilhelm Furtwaengler
• Wilhelm Furtwangler
• Wilhelm Furtwängler
• Wilhelm Förster
• Wilhelm Gegenfurtner
• Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher
• Wilhelm, German Crown Prince
• Wilhelm-Geschütz
• Wilhelm Gesenius
• Wilhelm Gliese
• Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann
• Wilhelm Grebe
• Wilhelm Grimm
• Wilhelm Groener
• Wilhelm Gustloff
• Wilhelm Haering
• Wilhelm Haidinger
• Wilhelm Haller
• Wilhelm haller
• Wilhelm Hammershoi