Alvear Palace Hotel
The Alvear Palace Hotel is a luxury hotel located in Avenida Alvear in Recoleta, an upscale neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The hotel was inaugurated in 1932 and, following extensive refurbishment, was reinaugurated in 1994.
History
The hotel was built by Buenos Aires businessman and socialite Dr. Rafael de Miero, who had been to Paris in the early 1920s and wanted to bring some of that Belle Epoque grandeur to his then flourishing hometown.
He bought and demolished a large house on the corner of Avenida Alvear and Ayacucho in 1922, which began the decade-long on-again, off-again project, which finally opened in 1932. A success, it was expanded in 1940, consuming another old mansion on Avenida Alvear.
In 1970, ownership passed to the 26-year-old Andreas von Salm-Kyrburg Wernitz, Duke of Hornes, Spanish cousin of King Juan Carlos I,[1] who presided over the hotel's slow decline as a result of labour disputes and a general Argentinian economic stagnation. With bankruptcy threatening, in 1978 Wernitz sold the hotel to the Aragon Hotel Group, and since 1984, it's been part of David Sutton Dabbah's Alvear Luxury Hotels.
It was renovated in 1984, and again in 2004.[2]
Anecdotes
- In 1962 the actor Tony Curtis and his family (Janet Leigh, Kelly Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis) stayed in room 606 when filmed Taras Bulba.
- In 1964 in room 805, the actress Juliette Mayniel tried to commit suicide, when she learned that her husband Vittorio Gassman was deceiving her. A hotel employee saved her just in time.
- On May 4, 1992, the Swedish music group Roxette recorded the songs "Here Comes the Weekend" and "So Far Away" in the room 603, which were included in the album Tourism
- Horacio Ferrer Lived in hotel for 38 years till his death in 2014.
- In 2009 the hotel was featured in the movie Walt & El Grupo, when Walt Disney come to South America in 1942.
Notable guests
- Ted Turner
- Arthur Miller
- Jacques Chirac
- Antonio Banderas
- Sharon Stone
- Melanie Griffith
- Sean Connery
- Kenzo
- Akihito and Michiko
- Michael Schumacher
- Al Pacino
- Marcello Mastroianni
- Catherine Deneuve
- Salma Hayek
- Alan Parker
- Beatrix of the Netherlands
- Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Máxima of the Netherlands
- Wim Wenders
- Nelson Mandela
- Sofia Loren
- Helmut Kohl
- Walt Disney
- Rafael Alberti
- Fidel Castro
- Shaquille O'Neal
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Karl Lagerfeld
- Claudia Schiffer
- John Malkovich
- Tom Cruise
- Omar Sharif
- Muhammad Ali
- Margrethe II of Denmark
- Orson Welles
- Isabelle Huppert
- Harald V of Norway and Queen Sonja of Norway
- Vladimir Putin
- Angela Merkel
- Mario Vargas Llosa
References
- http://europeandynasties.com/relationship_between_king_juan_c.htm
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-02-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- Evans, Polly (2007-03-19). "My kind of town: Buenos Aires". Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2008-10-06.
- "EN EL ALVEAR PALACE HOTEL MEDIA TARDE. EL CHEF PATISSIER RICARDO BASCONCELLOS COMPARTE SUS DELICIAS PARA UN ENCUENTRO EXQUISITO CON FAMILIARES Y AMIGOS. SENCILLEZ Y SOFISTICACIÓN AL MISMO TIEMPO, UN MIX IRRESISTIBLE". Rio Negro (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2008-10-08. Retrieved 2008-10-06.