Hotel Ambos Mundos (Havana)
Hotel Ambos Mundos | |
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Hotel Ambos Mundos | |
General information | |
Location | Havana, Cuba |
Address | Calle Obispo no. 153, La Habana |
Opening | 1925 |
Owner | Habaguanex S.A. |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 5 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Luis Wise Hernandez |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 52 |
Number of suites | 3 |
Website | |
www.hotelambosmundos-cuba.com |
The Hotel Ambos Mundos (Spanish pronunciation: [oˈtel ˈambos ˈmundos], Both Worlds Hotel) is a hotel in Havana, Cuba. Built with a square form with five floors, it has an eclectic set of characteristics of 20th-century style architecture. It was built in 1924 on a site that previously had been occupied by an old family house on the corner of Calle Obispo and Mercaderes (Bishop and Merchants Streets) in Old Havana.[1] It is a frequent tourist destination because it was home to the popular writer Ernest Hemingway for seven years in the 1930s.[2][3]
History
From colonial times the zone of Old Havana in which the building is now sited was populated by a diverse collection of family houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Spanish retailer Antolín Blanco Arias bought a family house on the site, from his office colleague Manuel Llerandi y Tomé. The new owner demolished the very old house to construct the hotel, the work being in charge of the architect Luis Wise Hernandez.[4][better source needed]
In the 1930s this hotel was the property of the Asper family. Hotel Ambos Mundos was a family hotel, that attracted writers, actors and actresses, and many Americans.
This hotel since has gained international note from its most famous long-time tenant: in 1932 a room on the upper (5th) floor became the “first home” in Cuba of writer Ernest Hemingway, who enjoyed the views of Old Havana, and the harbor in which he fished frequently in his yacht Pilar. Hemingway rented the room for $1.50 per night ($1.75 for double occupancy) until mid-1939, when he transferred his winter residence from Key West (a U.S. island 90 miles from Cuba) to a house in the hills near Havana, Finca Vigia, which he shared with Martha Gellhorn (they were married in 1940). Hemingway began his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, a novel of the Spanish Civil War which he had witnessed over the previous several years, in the room in the Ambos Mundos, on 1 March 1939.
Today, his hotel room, No. 511, is presented as if the author might have left it, and is a small museum in the middle of the establishment, with tours given regularly in the daytime.[5] The corner of the ground floor hotel lobby also has two walls of framed photographs dedicated to Hemingway.[6][better source needed]
In 1987, the hotel underwent some small restoration, with more complete work finalized in 1997 to turn it once again into a luxurious hotel reminiscent of its time. Between 2004 and 2005, further maintenance was carried out, cleaning and painting the Hotel's facades.[7][better source needed]
Structure
As originally conceived, the three-story building plan had the following distribution: the ground floor served as a commercial center, and in the upper two floors were the rooms for the guests. The fused concrete and steel structure of the building gave an eclectic and modern character for its time of manufacture. In 1924, the original plan was extended, gaining height to a final five stories. Finally, the structure was officially declared habitable on 6 January 1925.
Five years after construction a hall was placed in the roof giving views of the Harbor from the top of the building and adding a kitchen and services. Presently the building contains its original still-functioning Otis screen-cage elevators, and a lobby with a low open freshwater fountain/pool in which turtles are maintained.[8][better source needed]
References
- ^ Brooks, Victoria (2000). Literary trips: Following in the Footsteps of Fame. Greatest Escapes Publishing. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-9686137-0-2.
- ^ Greenberg, Peter (2004). Hotel Secrets From the Travel Detective. Villard Books. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-375-75972-7.
Hotel Ambos Mundos.
- ^ Office of the Historian of the City of Havana. "Ernest Hemingway" (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 November 2009.
- ^ Program of b c d Havana Radio. "Hotel Both Worlds: Street Bishop no. 153 corner to Merchants” (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 November 2009. Obtained from es:Hotel Ambos Mundos (La Habana)
- ^ Lightfoot, Claudia (2002). Havana: A Cultural and Literary Companion. Signal Books. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-902669-33-5.
- ^ Program of b c d Havana Radio. "Hotel Both Worlds: Street Bishop no. 153 corner to Merchants” (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 November 2009. Obtained from es:Hotel Ambos Mundos (La Habana).
- ^ Program of b c d Havana Radio. "Hotel Both Worlds: Street Bishop no. 153 corner to Merchants” (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 November 2009. Obtained from “es:Hotel Ambos Mundos (La Habana)
- ^ Program of b c d Havana Radio. "Hotel Both-Worlds: Street Bishop no. 153 corner to Merchants” (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 November 2009. Obtained from es:Hotel Ambos Mundos (La Habana).
Gallery
- Hotel Ambos Mundos in Old Havana
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External links
- Hotel Website in English.
- v
- t
- e
- The Torrents of Spring (1926)
- The Sun Also Rises (1926)
- A Farewell to Arms (1929)
- To Have and Have Not (1937)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
- Across the River and into the Trees (1950)
- The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
- Death in the Afternoon (1932)
- Green Hills of Africa (1935)
- A Moveable Feast (1964)
- Islands in the Stream (1970)
- The Dangerous Summer (1985)
- The Garden of Eden (1986)
- True at First Light (1999)
- Under Kilimanjaro (2005)
- "Up In Michigan" (1921)
- "Indian Camp" (1924)
- "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" (1925)
- "The End of Something" (1925)
- "The Three-Day Blow" (1925)
- "The Battler" (1925)
- "A Very Short Story" (1925)
- "Soldier's Home" (1925)
- "The Revolutionist" (1925)
- "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" (1925)
- "Cat in the Rain" (1925)
- "Out of Season" (1925)
- "Cross Country Snow" (1925)
- "My Old Man" (1925)
- "Big Two-Hearted River" (1925)
- "Banal Story" (1926)
- "Today is Friday" (1926)
- "A Canary for One" (1927)
- "Fifty Grand" (1927)
- "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927)
- "The Killers" (1927)
- "The Undefeated" (1927)
- "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" (1927)
- "In Another Country" (1927)
- "Now I Lay Me" (1927)
- "A Simple Enquiry" (1927)
- "Ten Indians" (1927)
- "An Alpine Idyll" (1927)
- "A Pursuit Race" (1927)
- "On the Quai at Smyrna" (1930)
- "Fathers and Sons" (1932)
- "A Natural History of the Dead" (1932)
- "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" (1933)
- "A Day's Wait" (1933)
- "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" (1933)
- "A Way You'll Never Be" (1933)
- "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1936)
- "The Capital of the World" (1936)
- "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1936)
- "Old Man at the Bridge" (1938)
collections
- Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923)
- In Our Time (1925)
- Men Without Women (1927)
- Winner Take Nothing (1933)
- The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938)
- The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1961)
- The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War (1969)
- The Nick Adams Stories (1972)
- The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (1987)
- Ernest Hemingway: The Collected Stories (1995)
- "On Writing"
- 88 Poems (1979)
- Complete Poems
- Today is Friday (1926)
- The Fifth Column (1938)
- The Spanish Earth (1937 film)
journalism
- By-Line: Ernest Hemingway (1967)
- Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 (1981)
- Dateline: Toronto (1985)
- The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway (2011)
The Sun Also Rises |
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"The Killers" |
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A Farewell to Arms |
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To Have and Have Not |
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For Whom the Bell Tolls |
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The Old Man and the Sea |
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Other film adaptations |
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- Birthplace and boyhood home
- Michigan cottage
- Hemingway-Pfeiffer House
- Key West home
- Hotel Ambos Mundos, Havana home
- Finca Vigía, Cuba home
- Idaho home
- Bacall to Arms (1946 cartoon)
- Hemingway: On the Edge (1987 play)
- In Love and War (1996 film)
- Midnight in Paris (2011 film)
- Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012 film)
- Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen (2013 documentary)
- Papa: Hemingway in Cuba (2015 film)
- Genius (2016 film)
- Hemingway (2021 documentary series)
- Nick Adams
- Floridita
- Pilar (boat)
- Iceberg theory
- Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament
- International Imitation Hemingway Competition
- Maxwell Perkins
- Adriana Ivancich
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Premio Hemingway
- Hello Hemingway (1990 film)
- Hemingway: A Portrait (1999 documentary)
- Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999 documentary)
- Hemingway crater
- Kennedy Library Hemingway collection
- Elizabeth Hadley Richardson (first wife)
- Jack Hemingway (son)
- Pauline Pfeiffer (second wife)
- Patrick Hemingway (son)
- Gloria Hemingway (daughter)
- Martha Gellhorn (third wife)
- Mary Welsh Hemingway (fourth wife)
- Lorian Hemingway (granddaughter)
- Margaux Hemingway (granddaughter)
- John Hemingway (grandson)
- Mariel Hemingway (granddaughter)
- Grace Hall Hemingway (mother)
- Leicester Hemingway (brother)
23°08′22″N 82°21′02″W / 23.13944°N 82.35056°W / 23.13944; -82.35056