Hotel Nacional de Cuba

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is a historic luxury hotel located on the "Malecón" in Havana, Cuba. It was designed by the famous New York firm McKim, Mead and White and features an eclectic mix of architectural styles. It opened in 1930, when Cuba was a prime travel destination for Americans, long before the embargo.

Among its first illustrious guests were artists, actors and writers such as Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Keaton, Jorge Negrete, Agustin Lara, Tyrone Power, Rómulo Gallegos, Errol Flynn, Marlon Brando and Ernest Hemingway. The hotel’s reputation as a deluxe host is backed by patrons such as Winston Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, scientist Alexander Flemming, and innumerable Ibero American Heads of State and European monarchs. Minnesota (United States) Governor Jesse Ventura stayed at the hotel while visiting Cuba on a trade mission in 2002.

In 1933, after Fulgencio Batista's September 4, 1933 coup against the transitional government, it was the residence of Sumner Welles and was the site of a bloody siege, which pitted the Cuban Army officers who had been instrumental in the overthrow of Gerardo Machado (August 12. 1933), against the non-commissioned officers and ranks of the Cuban army who supported Batista. Despite heavy losses due to the presence of the extremely accurate Cuban Olympic Rifle team, the Batista forces prevailed. A number of officers were shot on surrender.

In December 1946 it hosted an infamous mob summit, run by Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and attended by Santo Trafficante, Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia, Vito Genovese and many others. It was memorably dramatized by Francis Ford Coppola in his film The Godfather Part II.

Pan Am's Intercontinental Hotels Corporation took over management of the hotel in 1955 and built a luxurious casino that was operated by Meyer Lansky and his brother Jake, with Wilbur Clark of Las Vegas's Desert Inn as the front man. The casino was closed by Castro in October 1960, nearly two years after the revolution.

After years of neglect due to the disappearance of Cuba's tourism following the Cuban revolution, the hotel was mainly used to accommodate diplomats and foreign government officials. After the collapse of the USSR the Cuban communist party soon reopened Cuba to tourists in search of monetary support. Despite its restoration during the 1990s the hotel no longer carries the status and impact it once did. But its remaining splendor and history serves as tangible remainder to Cuba's past times.

The hotel has been depicted in several films and is a popular photographed and painted landmark. The last scene of the 2001's movie Nada + (Nothing more) takes place in top of the Cascade Fountain in the Hotel grounds.

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External links

* [http://www.hotelnacionaldecuba.com/en/home.asp Hotel Nacional official website]
* [http://www.hotelnacionalcuba.com Hotel Nacional de Cuba History]