Normandie Hotel

The Normandie Hotel is a historic building located in the Isleta de San Juan, in San Juan, Puerto Rico which opened on October 10, 1942 as a hotel but as of 2019 remains unused and abandoned. Its design was inspired by the French transatlantic passenger ship SS Normandie in addition to featuring the same art deco design as the ocean liner that inspired it, and the hotel's original roof sign was one of the two signs that adorned the top deck of the SS Normandie but were removed from it during an early refitting. It is an example of what came to be known as the Streamline Moderne architecture style.

This article is about the hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. For the hotel in Los Angeles, California, see Hotel Normandie.
Hotel Normandie
View of the Normandie Hotel from Muñoz Rivera Avenue, October 2007
Location of the Hotel Normandie in Puerto Rico
LocationPonce de León Ave. and San Gerónimo St., San Juan, Puerto Rico
Coordinates18°27′52″N 66°05′15″W
Built1942
ArchitectRaúl Reichard & Félix Benítez Rexach
Architectural styleArt Deco, Streamline Moderne
NRHP reference No.80004295[1]
Added to NRHPAugust 29, 1980

History

The Normandie Hotel was the brainchild of Puerto Rican engineer Félix Benítez Rexach. The engineer met his future wife while on a trip aboard the Normandie. As a tribute to his French wife, Moineau, Benítez decided to construct a structure that imitated the lavish settings of the ship. Designed by architect Raúl Reichard (1908–1996), the hotel began construction in 1938. The hotel's exterior was designed to resemble a luxury ocean liner, elongated and curved in front and back, with porthole-shaped lights on the facade of the 6th floor, as well as on the front on all floors except the front entrance and 2nd floor. Inside, the hotel features art deco design, complete with Roman, Egyptian, and French details, high ceilings, corridors looking down into a central skylighted atrium, banisters that resemble those on ships on the edges of all floors except the lobby, a pool outside in the back shaped similarly to the hotel, and had blue or orange awnings above the windows on the upper floors until the hotel closed in the 1960s.

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, it became an instant sensation among the island's social elite. Completed at a cost of more than US$2,000,000, the hotel catered to many major Hollywood and Latin American film stars such as Cantinflas, Libertad Lamarque and Jorge Negrete. The hotel also served as a performing arts venue for many of Puerto Rico's top entertainers, such as Ruth Fernández, Myrta Silva, Sylvia Rexach, and Carmen Delia Dipini.

After being closed and abandoned in the 1960s, the hotel was restored in the early 1990s. Afterwards, it underwent massive renovations due to heavy damage caused by Hurricane Georges in 1998. After storm-related damages were repaired, the hotel remained in business until 2004, when another renovation project commenced. In early 2005, the 173-room hotel reopened after its refurbishing and would operate as a Boutique Hotel for 4 years, before closing again by late 2009, since then the hotel has remained unused and abandoned for over a decade by 2019. [2] In 2015 the hotel's roof sign was removed, and only the structure that held up the letters of the sign remains.[3]

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.[4][5] In 2014,[6] then in the spring of 2017[7] and again in the spring of 2018, investors were considering the purchase of the Normandie Hotel.[8] In August 2014, it remained abandoned, locked up, deteriorated, and eventually was vandalized. .[9] Its entire electrical, plumbing and other infrastructure would need to be entirely redone if the property is purchased and reopened.[10]

Recognition

The Normandie Hotel was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[11]

  • The 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.[12]
  • The hotel served as a locale for one of the four stories that helped compose the storyline for the 2001 film 12 Horas directed 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
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. "Cuéntame: ¿Qué ha pasado con el Normandie?". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). July 19, 2016.
  3. "Puerto Rico tourism industry lags rivals, offers little relief from debt crisis". July 27, 2015 – via www.reuters.com.
  4. "Glamour que duerme entre las ruinas". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). 2016-09-17. Archived from the original on 2017-07-29. Retrieved 2017-07-29.
  5. "PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines". www.pressreader.com.
  6. "A revivir el Normandie". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). August 7, 2014.
  7. "Asoman compradores para el hotel Normandie". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). March 21, 2017. Archived from the original on March 21, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  8. "A punto de concretarse la compra del Hotel Normandie". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). April 24, 2018. Archived from the original on April 24, 2018. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
  9. Harlan, Susan (August 6, 2014). "The Nostalgic Traveler: Hotel Normandie". Archived from the original on September 4, 2016. Retrieved December 25, 2019.
  10. "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form" (PDF). agencias pr gov. Puerto Rico. Retrieved 25 December 2019.
  11. Puerta de Tierra: Hotel Normandie: "Archived copy". Archived from the original on June 30, 2008. Retrieved 2007-06-10.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  12. King of Sorrow music video Archived 2017-01-20 at the Wayback Machine from YouTube

Further reading
  • "La Môme Moineau" by Michel Ferracci-Porri.The first biography of Moineau and Félix Benitez. Editions Normant ISBN 978-2-915685-28-2
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