Hotel Nacional

Hotel Nacional

In 1929 Cuba completed its own Capitol building, which looks like the US Capitol. A tall dome, a huge, wide stairway cascading from the main floor to the street level, and legislative chambers at each end of a wide colonnaded Greek Revival monument were all features familiar to Americans visiting Havana.

Yet, even though its similarities to our Capitol are somehow flattering to Americans, my own favorite American style building is another iconic Havana landmark, the Hotel Nacional. Built two years later than the Capitolio, the Hotel Nacional is the end of the line for Henry Flagler's East Coast Railroad.

This hotel gets my nomination as the most iconic American structure in Havana. One big reason is the hotel lives on today as it was originally intended--a luxury hotel for tourists and business people. The Capitolio fails this test as Cuba has no need for a bicameral, democratic legislature. The place has become an fine art gallery, the sight of important meetings, and a target for thousands of digital cameras in the hands of Cuba's endless stream of visitors.

But the hotel wins my top iconic structure award for other reasons too. Flagler was a pioneer trying to connect up many populations along the Atlantic. But that connection didn't stop at Miami, the last big mainland city. Starting in 1905, Flagler pushed on another 160 miles to Key West, building railroad bridges from key to key, so the final American station was Key West. Still not satisfied, he offered a ferry service from Key West to Havana. You could step off your train in Key West, walk across a wide platform, and board a ferry to Havana.

Henry seemed to accept no limitations for the enterprise he was building. He established hotels at each city he served. In 1921, the Casa Marina Hotel in Key West opened, and ten years later the Hotel Nacional in Havana opened for Cuba-bound tourists. So this hotel, a twin sister to Flagler's Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, is representative of American free enterprise, a conglomerate, and a crowning symbol of a robber baron's dreams brought to fruition. Also, as all three hotels I have mentioned are still operating as hotels, it is a testament to Flagler's savvy as a business person. We have many such examples in the US (Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Libraries, and Ford Museums to name a few) while Cuba has relatively few.

In 2006 on my second trip to Cuba, I was talked into staying a week at the Hotel Nacional. A friend, part of our traveling party, who had been to Cuba many times also insisted we stay on the 6th (executive) floor where you "get VIP treatment." I had been perfectly happy at the Hotel Presidente, a much less ritzy place, but very comfortable and convenient on my previous and subsequent trips. But now I'm glad that at least I had a taste of the Nacional.

You arrive at the Nacional through a long drive lined with new black cars waiting to whisk you all over Havana. None of these cars for hire are the old 50's era American cars. Those were nowhere to be found near the Nacional.

Inside, the main reception hall runs the entire width of the building, and crowds gather around the several clerks waiting to serve them, but when an attendant learned we had reservations on the sixth floor, we were steered around the crowds to an elevator and up to a concierge style desk where any hotel service could be had. One signature on a form already filled out for me was all I needed to be led to my very comfortable room.

The rest of my stay there was filled with people anxious to make my stay a pleasure--get tickets for a show, directions to wherever you're going, and where to buy this and that. First thing in the morning, a huge table in the sitting area near our private reception area strained under the weight of platter after elaborate platter of delicious breakfast choices--tropical fruits, beans and rice, hash browns, eggs, fish, cereals--you name it, it was on the buffet.

One floor below the huge main reception hall are meeting rooms, shops, and a couple of restaurants, one a cafeteria affair with silver service prices. If you cross the main reception hall from the front door, you pass through doors and outside to a wonderful covered cocktail lounge area with easy chairs, sofas, strolling musicians, or stationary musical groups playing the old Cuban standards of the pre-revolution days so familiar to the tourists. Songs like Siboney, Green Eyes, Bésame Mucho, and Guantamera. If you don't do anything else in Cuba, you have to sit in that outdoor area in the cool of the evening, drink a mojito, and listen to the great music. All this with a view of the Florida Straits and Miami's lights a faint glow on the horizon.

Just as you don't see any of the old 50's cars near the hotel, you don't see any stray dogs nearby either. I suppose the hotel area gets extra scrutiny from the city's dog catchers who capture luckless dogs and cats and hold them away from tourists' eyes for a rabies quarantine period before killing them. It's hard to think of those poor little souls when you don't see them and you're being pampered to within an inch of your life. But once in a while I had to think of them--after all, they were the reason we went to Cuba.

I won't stay at the Nacional again. My regular hotel, the Presidente, is cheaper (about half the price), sufficient to my needs, and a little better located for me. But, I'll always have pleasant memories of my stay at the Nacional, especially after it's having won my Iconic American Structure Award,.

Les Inglis