Architecture
The Hotel Armadores de Santander is located in front of the bay of Havana. It consists of three buildings where their facades, with their reliefs in stone of the Coat of Arms of Santander surrounded of marine reasons, it’s a wonderful evocation of the marine past of the Havana city.
The restoration process undertaken from 1999 by The Office of the Historian of The City, was able to integrate three constructions functionally: two of them with dissimilar architectural styles - the first one is of eclectic construction and the second of neoclassical architecture with Roman fronton and Corinthian columns, both pertain to finals of the XIX century -, and the other one entirety reconstructed.
At the present time, they’s been recognized by the different colors of their facades, because each property has one that particularizes it in its group. In the main construction the color stone was used; in the next one, the sepia color - both tonalities belongs together with those that had originally -, and in the other one, clear blue.
The intention of being able to integrate the buildings, didn't prevent that its distinctive stamps were respected. Besides initial J.C. of his first owner, José Cabrero, in the wooden door of the main building that gives access to the lobby, in the course of the restoration other original elements of the old construction could be rescued, like they are: the main stairway of marble of Carrara with marble’s rail too and cast iron, the central cupola with his paintings, several witness walls in rooms, and the internal columns of the bar and lobby.
The lobby-bar, of French elegant windows, it has been set with original pieces of the XIX century, sculptures and brass jars, porcelain vases and Chesterfield style furniture, components that got lost with the course of the time; for that reason it’s recovered like it was in the past, the same as the hall floor of big concrete brick and the wooden beams of the roof. To the bottom, Luis Reina's oil painting is appreciated that it remembers the wharfs of the Havana port. From the own lobby-bar, Mezzanine is espied, where you can meet the art gallery with contemporary Cuban plastic artists' transitory exhibitions.
One of the distinctive reasons of the hotel is the shield of the city of Santander that finishes off the facade of the main building, which was rescued to the same as the interior cupola and the paneling roof with eclectic style of the hall.
In general, the design and, interior and external atmosphere of the buildings, stayed according to the original styles, although - without doubts - it was able to enrich the architectural and ornamental harmony of the current hotel.
