Hotel Nacional de Cuba

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

History

Design and construction

The Parti pris of the Hotel Nacional is unique and based on two Greek crosses, so that 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 of the building 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.
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  has two stylized column capitals and quoins of coral stone. The hotel was financed by the National City Bank of New York.

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 operation

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, 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 July 1943 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 dramatised the conference in his film The Godfather Part II. 

In September 1955, Kirkeby Hotels Corp. sold the Hotel Nacional to a newly formed Cuban company, Corporacion Intercontinental de Hoteles, S.A., with Pan Am's Intercontinental Hotel Corp. division assuming partial ownership and also management of the property. Alphons Landa, a 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. 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.

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, who became the hotel's first black guest. 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." 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.

Havana conference

The conference took place at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. The reported organizer of the Havana Conference was crime boss Lucky Luciano. The Havana Conference convened on December 20, 1946. Delegates were present representing New York City, New Jersey, Buffalo, Chicago, New Orleans and Florida, with the largest delegation of bosses from the New York-New Jersey area. Several major bosses from the Jewish Syndicate were at the conference to discuss joint La Cosa Nostra-Jewish Syndicate business. According to conference rules, the Jewish delegates could not vote on Cosa Nostra rules or policies; however, the Jewish crime bosses were allowed input on any joint business ventures, such as the Flamingo Hotel.

Luciano opened the Havana Conference by discussing a topic that would greatly affect his authority within the American Mafia; the position of "capo di tutti capi" or "boss of all bosses". The last official boss of all bosses had been Salvatore Maranzano, who was murdered in September 1931. By the end of 1931, Luciano had eliminated this top position and re-organized the Italian mafia into "La Cosa Nostra", or "This Thing of Ours". A board of directors, commonly called the "Commission", had been formed to oversee criminal activities, control rules, and set policies. La Cosa Nostra thus became the top criminal organization within the National Crime Syndicate.

Now Luciano could easily have declared himself as Maranzano's heir in 1932; instead, Luciano decided to exercise control behind the scenes. This arrangement had worked until Vito Genovese's return from Italy. Officially, Genovese was now just a caporegime; however, he had made it clear that he intended to take control of the Luciano crime family. Since Luciano's deportation in 1946, Luciano ally Frank Costello had been the acting boss of the Luciano family. As a result, tensions between the Costello and Genovese factions had started to fester. Luciano had no intention of stepping down as family boss; he had to do something about Genovese. Luciano also realized that Genovese threatened his overall authority and influence within the American mafia, probably with support from other crime bosses. Therefore, Luciano decided to resurrect the boss of all bosses position and claim it for himself. He hoped the other bosses would support him, either by officially affirming the title or at least by acknowledging that he was still "First Amongst Equals".

At the conference, Luciano allegedly presented the motion to retain his position as the top boss in La Cosa Nostra. Then Luciano ally, Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia seconded the motion. Anastasia voted with Luciano because he felt threatened by Genovese's attempts to muscle in on his waterfront rackets. Checkmated by the Luciano-Costello-Anastasia alliance, Genovese was forced to swallow his ambitions and plan for the future. To further embarrass Genovese, Luciano encouraged Anastasia and Genovese to settle their differences and shake hands in front of the other bosses. This symbolic gesture was meant to prevent another bloody gang war such as the Castellammarese War of 1930–1931. With Luciano solidifying his personal position and squashing Genovese's ambition for now, Luciano brought up discussion of the mob's narcotics operations in the United States.

Post-Cuban 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.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, 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.

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. 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. 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, Yuri Gagarin, scientist Alexander Fleming, Minnesota (United States) Governor Jesse Ventura, 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.

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.

See also
Barrio de San Lázaro, Havana
FOCSA Building
Monument to the Victims of the USS Maine (Havana)
Purdy and Henderson, Engineers

Notes

References

External links

 Hotel Nacional de Cuba official website
 Hotel Nacional de Cuba official website
 Hotel Nacional de Cuba official Facebook page

Gallery

Category:Hotels in Havana
Category:Hotels established in 1930
Hotel Nacional de Cuba
Category:1930 establishments in Cuba