Normandie Hotel
Hotel Normandie | |
Location | Ponce de León Ave. and San Gerónimo St., San Juan, Puerto Rico |
---|---|
Coordinates | 18°27′52″N 66°05′15″W / 18.464493°N 66.087412°W |
Built | 1942 |
Architect | Raúl Reichard & Félix Benítez Rexach |
Architectural style | Art Deco, Streamline Moderne |
NRHP reference No. | 80004295[1] |
Added to NRHP | August 29, 1980 |
The Normandie Hotel is a historic building located in the
As of 2021[update] the building was vacant and not in operation and in 2022, was sold to private owners who said they plan to renovate it.
History
The Normandie Hotel was the brainchild of Puerto Rican engineer Félix Benítez Rexach.[1] He married the French singer Lucienne D'Hotelle in 1927 or 1928;[2][3] reportedly, he built the hotel as a wedding present for his bride.[4] He served as the president of the Escambron Development Company, which was incorporated in approximately 1943 to issue bonds to finance the completion of the hotel. Escambron owned and operated the hotel.[2]
The hotel was designed by architect
Designers and artists from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, France, and Spain all contributed to the hotel's overall construction. When it opened on October 10, 1942,
The coastline of Puerto Rico was expropriated by the federal government for defense during World War II, including the hotel, and Benítez Rexach, who had moved to the Dominican Republic in 1944, reportedly protested by refusing to pay his property taxes.
The Normandie Hotel was purchased on August 8, 2013, by Ben Medetsky and Jack Polatsek of Interra Capital Group for nearly US$4,000,000 but after initial plans for redevelopment of the hotel, the group decided to sell it.[7][8] In 2015, the owners removed the hotel's historic roof sign in order to protect and preserve it, and only the structure that held up the letters of the sign remains.[9] Although various groups of investors attempted to purchase the property in 2014,[10] then in the spring of 2017[11] and again in the spring of 2018,[12] it wasn't actually sold until January 2022.[13]
Recognition
The Normandie Hotel was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[1][16]
Popular culture
- Professional boxer Hector Marcano television show named "Marcano... el show".[17]
- The 2001 music video for singer Sade Adu's song "King of Sorrow" (from her Lovers Rock album) was filmed in and around the hotel by director Sophie Muller.[18]
- The hotel served as a locale for one of the four stories that helped compose the storyline for the 2001 film 12 Horasdirected by Puerto Rican director Raúl Marchand Sánchez.
- The lobby of the hotel was used to shoot scenes from the 2009 film A Perfect Getaway.
See also
References
- ^ a b c "National Register Information System – Hotel Normandie (#80004295)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2 November 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
- ^ a b c United States v. Rexach, 185 F. Supp. 465 (D.P.R. 1960).
- ^ United States v. Lucienne D'Hotelle, 558 F.2d 37 (1st Cir. 1977).
- ^ a b c d Maslow, Jonathan Evan (7 August 1977). "Encounter: 'I Was the Only Guest—And I Was the Last'". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
- ^ a b McPhaul, John (17 March 2021). "PDP lawmaker asks Tourism office at DDEC to demolish old Hotel Normandie". San Juan Daily Star. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
- ^ "Cuéntame: ¿Qué ha pasado con el Normandie?". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). 19 July 2016.
- ^ "Glamour que duerme entre las ruinas". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). 17 September 2016. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
- ^ "Ícono Del Glamour Yace Entre Ruinas" (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 September 2023 – via PressReader.
- ^ "Puerto Rico tourism industry lags rivals, offers little relief from debt crisis". 27 July 2015 – via www.reuters.com.
- ^ "A revivir el Normandie". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). 7 August 2014.
- ^ "Asoman compradores para el hotel Normandie". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). 21 March 2017. Archived from the original on 21 March 2017. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
- ^ "A punto de concretarse la compra del Hotel Normandie". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). 24 April 2018. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
- ^ a b "New owners plan to return Normandie Hotel 'to its former glory'". The San Juan Daily Star. 21 January 2022. Retrieved 11 March 2022.
- ^ McPhaul, John (19 March 2021). "Culture institute rejects demolition of Hotel Normandie". San Juan Daily Star. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
- ^ "Hard Rock Internat'l: Reports of Normandie deal are 'patently false'". San Juan Daily Star. 27 September 2021. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
- ^ Puerta de Tierra: Hotel Normandie: "Historia del Hotel Normandie - San Juan". Archived from the original on 30 June 2008. Retrieved 10 June 2007.
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: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ "BROMA a "Macho" Camacho... Le roban el carro... "Marcano el Show"" – via www.youtube.com.
- YouTube "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 January 2017. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
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Further reading
- "La Môme Moineau" by Michel Ferracci-Porri.The first biography of Moineau and Félix Benitez. Editions Normant Archived 11 March 2009 at the ISBN 978-2-915685-28-2
External links
- Media related to Normandie Hotel at Wikimedia Commons
- Harlan, Susan (6 August 2014). "The Nostalgic Traveler: Hotel Normandie". Archived from the original on 4 September 2016. Retrieved 25 December 2019.