By h.b. - Oct 12, 2012 - 3:00 PM
The Palace Hotel under construction in 1912.
Madrid is celebrating the bath today, because the Palace Hotel in
Madrid was the first European hotel with an en-suite bathroom, and that
was 100 years ago.
Since then the hotel has been witness to the attempted coup on February
23 1981, and has served as a hospital, and a political home.
The building was completed on October 1912.
It was King Alfonso XIII who ordered the building to be built in 1911 to
solve the lack of accommodation in Madrid and in a record 18 months the
doors were opened.
In the twenties the Palace was at the centre of the Madrid night-life
with dry martinis being drunk under a large glass dome, and couples
liked to dance between the columns of Rotonda Restaurant which still
remains in service today.
But the night-life at the Palace saw the piano go silent with the arrival
of the Civil War. The Republican Government reserved a floor for the
Soviet Embassy, and the rest of the building was converted into a
hospital, with the rooms becoming infirmaries and halls and corridors
becoming operating rooms.
The hotel saw the visits of Europeans with high incomes, but that coincided with the years of hunger.
Things recovered in the late 40’s and 50’s when grand fortunes fled the
Second World War and the rooms filled with people in exile and spies.
When Spain turned to democracy, the hotel almost became a political
institution. It was the headquarters for journalists, and government
formed after the coup.
The hotel guest list includes Einstein, the Dalai Lama and Bruce Springsteen and was an inspiration for Ernest Hemingway.
I wonder how many times they changed the plumbing in the last 100 years.
