Have you thought about sleeping in a room where Al Capone slept or where, just a while later, another mafia character like Santo Trafficante did? Or stay in the same rooms once used by Josephine Baker, Imperio Argentina and Libertad Lamarque? Lola Flores, Tongolele, Tin Tan, Pérez Prado? Hugo del Carril or Jorge Negrete? The painter David Alfaro Siqueiros and the chess player José Raúl Capablanca…?
All these possibilities exist at the Hotel Sevilla, one of the oldest hotels in Cuba. Here takes place part of the story of “Our man in Havana”, which is one of the well-known novels by Graham Greene; who was also a guest at this hotel. So were Georges Simenon, creator of the famous literary character Inspector Maigret, and Ernest Hemingway, Novel Prize for Literature. Enrico Caruso and Rubén Darío also stayed at this hotel on their way through Havana, as did Mary Pickford, to whom the hotel dedicated a cocktail party that is still an emblem of the institution.
Thanks to the distinguished personalities who used its facilities, the Seville is a hotel with history. That and it has already completed 100 years of service. It was the first large luxury hotel on the island, and today, a four-star hotel, for its comfort and the excellence of its services, it continues to be among the favorite hotel options for a pleasant vacation in Cuba. Its beautiful architecture also contributes to its preference, which replicates the entrance to the Patio de los Leones in the Alhambra, in Granada, Andalusia, with a profusion of arches, columns and mosaics. And also its excellent location, right next to the famous Paseo del Prado and a few hundred meters from the Malecón de La Habana, at the entrance to the Historic Center of the city, and a few steps from famous museums and great Cuban bars and restaurants. capital.
Hotel Sevilla in Old Havana This hotel has gone through several stages since it was founded. The Sevilla hotel was inaugurated in 1908. If you take a look at the image of its main façade, you can notice that its original owner was a Spaniard with the last name González. This person, a short time later, sold the hotel to an American company that later sold it to the Biltmore Company, also with American capital. Americans have always known how to get the most profitability from a business, and aware of the growth of tourism on the island in the second decade of the last century, they strove to develop their facilities.
They bought a 10-story building that had been built next to the Plaza hotel, with its façade facing Paseo del Prado. This building was originally designed to house a hospital but it never opened because the owners had difficulties getting the declaration of the area as a zone of silence from the Havana City Council, a prerequisite for establishing a medical institution. The American company then joined the new building with the existing hotel and reopened in 1924 as the Seville Biltmore Hotel. For this reason, even today, there are two styles in the constructive aspect of the hotel, an attractive old style that can be seen in Trocadero street, and a more modern one that looks out over Paseo del Prado.
The hotel enjoyed the tourist boom of the time, which, as we said in a previous article, was supported by national and international circumstances that benefited the Plaza Hotel like no other hotel in Havana at that time, since its owners also managed the Hipódromo and the National Park. Casino.
Cuba was a paradise for the visitor interested in fun and entertainment, in exposing his luck in games and bets, but also according to the traveler’s chronicles of the time, some peculiarities of the Cuban idiosyncrasy made possible the tourist boom. In a book about our “tourist” attractions: “Cocktail Hours in Cuba,” published in 1928, its author, Basil Woon, made these libertine suggestions to potential travelers: “You can drink all you want, try your luck at the lottery and lose what you think is reasonable in the casino. In Havana it is not necessary to bring a marriage certificate if you are traveling as a couple and the visitor can look provocatively at the beautiful Cuban ladies since looking in Cuba is a compliment and not a crime”.
In 1939, the Hotel Sevilla was in the hands of Amleto Battisti, a Uruguayan of Italian origin who was the head of one of the four families of the Havana Mafia Empire. He turned the hotel into one of the Havana gambling paradises until 1959.
With the triumph of the revolutionary movement in January of the same year, Don Amleto, who also controlled heroin trafficking to the United States, left his hotel on the day of the triumph to take refuge in the Uruguayan embassy. He carried as luggage several large suitcases full of money. The Hotel Sevilla was then destined exclusively for local tourism until 1989, when it closed its doors for a major remodeling, reopening its doors in 1993 with the splendor that has always characterized it, but with the comforts of modernity.
I could tell stories of the many illustrious people who stayed at the Hotel Sevilla, but in this article I will only refer to one of them:
The great Josephine Baker stayed at the Hotel Sevilla when she first arrived in Havana in 1950, to perform several nights at the Teatro América. The Baker was initially seduced by the Hotel Nacional de Cuba as an ideal place to stay. But incredibly, being considered the flagship hotel of all Cuban hotels, she was not accepted because of the black color of her skin. Faced with this situation, Amleto Battisti, who recognized the fame that accompanied the world star, and knowing that her presence in her facilities would be excellent publicity for the hotel, offered to host her and serve her like a queen. The day after she arrived at the Hotel Sevilla, she began her performances at the Teatro América. Despite her 54 years, she looked agile and beautiful. She just that… that she danced with her clothes on. Still, the lines of people who crowded outside the theater to see it are said to have exceeded previous lines for other shows in Havana. The Sevilla was the hotel that saved Havana from not appreciating, in situ, the immense value of a living legend of world art, Josephine Baker.