Hotel El Convento
Encyclopedia
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
. Rated a 4 Diamond property by the American Automobile Association
American Automobile Association
AAA , formerly known as the American Automobile Association, is a federation of 51 independently operated motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a not-for-profit member service organization with more than 51 million members. AAA provides services to its members such as travel, automotive,...
. Hotel El Convento is the only Small Luxury Hotel in Puerto Rico. Member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World and Oldest Member of Historic Hotels of America.
Convent
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...
granted a petition from a Spanish noblewoman to establish a Carmelite convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
in San Juan, her birthplace. She was a granddaughter of Don Diego Menendez de Valdez, a Captain general of the Spanish army and governor of Puerto Rico from 1582 to 1593.
Doña Ana de Lansos y Menendez de Valdez, widow of Captain Pedro de Villate Escovedo, inherited a vast fortune on her young husband’s death in 1625 in an attack by the Dutch who, with the French and British, were constant enemies of Spanish power in the Americas. Childless, Doña Ana resided on a two house property across from the cathedral that she had provided for a war hospital and religious school which were later destroyed in the war-torn island.
There was no convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
in Puerto Rico. To enter a cloister, a lady had to travel to Havana or Santo Domingo, or all the way to Europe. Young ladies’ prospects of marriage were reduced with every new battle in the wars of the Indies. To pay for the convent construction and maintenance, Doña Ana donated her home and its adjoining land, a rectangular plot and sold all her possessions.
The soldiers of Colonial Spain garrisoned in the Old City erected the three-story convent designed by an army engineer. The walls (sun-baked clay brick) were three-foot thick to withstand Indians, European enemies, hurricanes and tropical heat. Doors and grilles over slotted windows were mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
and ausubo (ironwood), a dark wood from the West Indies that increases it's strength with age.
The building’s characteristic Spanish features were an enormous open interior courtyard framed by tiered balconies and arched corridors. Nuns’ cells were tiny rooms with single beds and straw mattresses. The spacious chapel had a domed ceiling.
Inaugurated in 1651
In July 1651, the Monastery of Our Lady Carmen of San Jose was inaugurated, better known as the Carmelite Convent. Doña Ana was the first to enter the cloister and became the mother superior. With her were her sister Antonia and four protégés.On Cristo Street, the convent was (and still is) adjacent to the Plaza of the Nuns, the city’s second oldest park. Across the street is San Juan Cathedral
Cathedral of San Juan Bautista
The Cathedral of San Juan Bautista is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.The cathedral is one of the oldest buildings in San Juan, and is the second oldest cathedral in the Americas. The Catedral de Santa María la Menor in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is the oldest...
, built in 1521 of clay, one-story with a thatched roof, destroyed by a hurricane and rebuilt starting in 1540. The Western Hemisphere’s oldest cathedral, it is one of the few examples of medieval architecture remaining in the New World.
A Convent for 252 Years
The first Carmelite Convent in the Americas housed nuns for 252 years. On December 9, 1903, the Archbishop of San Juan decided further repairs were too costly and the 9 remaining nuns and 2 novices moved a few days before Christmas.Vacant for a decade, the church purchased the abandoned building from the Carmelite nuns in 1913 for $151. They rented it first as a retail store, then a dance hall. For the next 40 years it was a flophouse
Flophouse
A flophouse , doss-house or dosshouse is a place that offers very cheap lodging, generally by providing only minimal services.-Characteristics:...
without running water, sanitary facilities or electricity, just as in the 1600’s. In 1953, the ruins became a parking lot for garbage trucks.
In 1957, they had mercifully slated the building for bulldozing to build a badly needed downtown parking garage when an urban renewal program had begun in Old San Juan. Entitled Operation Bootstrap, this program was headed by Ricardo Alegria
Ricardo Alegría
Ricardo Alegría was a Puerto Rican scholar, cultural anthropologist and archeologist known as the "Father of Modern Puerto Rican Archaeology".-Early years:...
from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture.
Resurrected as a Hotel
In 1959, under Operation Bootstrap, Robert Frederick Woolworth, heir to the Woolworth fortune, purchased the convent property from the Archdiocese of San Juan for $250,000 and transformed it into a deluxe hotel named El Convento. It would spur the development of business, tourism and employment in Old San Juan.It took three years to convert the decayed structure to a hotel. Two floors were added to the original convent’s three stories, creating 100 rooms, including 10 suites.
The interior designer accompanied by a photographer and Woolworth, journeyed everywhere in Spain to find furniture for the hotel. When he could not get authentic pieces from Spain’s Golden Age he commissioned reproductions of enormous chandeliers, wrought-iron fixtures and decorative tiles. All wood objects, furniture, louvered doors and overhead beams were handcrafted of walnut or mahogany. Lampshades were made with goatskins. Bedspreads and rugs were woven in Granada by gypsies.
No expense was spared, and it showed. The halls and galleries were filled with antiques: tapestries, paintings, shields, swords and carved chests. High-back chairs and settees were upholstered in satins and velvets. Guest rooms had canopied beds with elaborate headboards, beamed ceilings and window shutters.
Plumbing, wiring, an elevator and air-conditioning were installed. Arched corridors that once led to nuns’ cells now opened to eight different styles of guestrooms on the five floors.
The rectangular interior courtyard was so spacious that it had a dining room at one end and at the other, a swimming pool.
Opened January 27, 1962
El Convento celebrated its official inaugural on January 27, 1962. The Woolnor Corporation, a private company of the Woolworth’s, managed it. The hotel did not have a casino when it opened, but decided to open one in 1963. El Convento was an immediate success, a European-style luxury hotel starkly different from the new glitzy hotels that lined the neighboring fashionable Condado strip in San Juan. El Convento was a throwback to the era when hotels were destinations, in themselves. It was a self-contained, intimate resort offering fine dining, deluxe accommodations and international entertainment. Overnight it became the trendy place in the Caribbean for what were known as the “beautiful people.”The rich and famous flocked to El Convento: Hollywood stars of course, among them, Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
, Robert Montgomery
Robert Montgomery (actor)
Robert Montgomery was an American actor and director.- Early life :Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery, Jr. in Beacon, New York, then known as "Fishkill Landing", the son of Mary Weed and Henry Montgomery, Sr. His early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was president of the New...
and George Hamilton
George Hamilton (actor)
George Stevens Hamilton is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Hamilton was the youngest son of bandleader George "Spike" Hamilton and his first wife, Ann Stevens . He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and lived in Blytheville, Arkansas...
. Other celebrities to visit were Lynda Bird Johnson, Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
, singer Johnny Desmond
Johnny Desmond
Johnny Desmond , born Giovanni Alfredo De Simone, was a popular American singer.-Early years:...
, and concert pianist Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy...
. Pablo Casals
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...
could be heard playing his cello in the courtyard. People from around the world came and loved it.
The convent chapel was transformed into the Ponce de Leon Room, a truly elegant dining room, strictly black-tie with Old World Spanish décor, windows with stained glass coats-of-arms and a small dance floor. A Flamenco troupe entertained here six nights a week. In the adjoining Club Convento, there was dancing nightly to two big bands.
The Lamplighters Lounge, the town’s only cabaret, originated satirical revues. The late Raul Julia
Raúl Juliá
Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay was a Puerto Rican actor.Born in San Juan, he gained interest in acting while still in school. Upon completing his studies, Juliá decided to pursue a career in acting. After performing in the local scene for some time, he was convinced by entertainment personality Orson...
got his start here.
Providing shade in the open patio was a giant centurian nispero
Níspero
Níspero, nipero and mespel are terms referring to certain fruit-bearing trees, or to their fruit in particular:* Common Medlar , the origin of the term * Loquat , widely traded under these names today, in particular in temperate...
fruit tree from Spain. A variety of bats feed on fruit instead of insects and it was their nocturnal habit to fly in rounds from under the arches and cloister corridors, circling the tree to eat the fruit which is similar to crab apples.
A Gift to the Government
By the end of 1970, the Woolworth family decided the hotel business was unprofitable and terminated the casino license. In 1971, they officially presented the hotel as a gift to the government in lieu of back taxes. The hotel was then government operated but it decided that professional management was preferable. No casino was in operation during this time.A contract was awarded to CIGA, the Italian company associated with grand hotels such as the Gritti Palace in Venice. However, there followed a succession of operators all with different strategies to keep the hotel afloat. The Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company retained a Mexican hotel chain to manage the property. The starting date was January 1, 1982 for Provincial de Hoteles, which had ties with Stouffer Hotels and a European chain to service reservations. The Mexican group changed the name from El Convento Hotel to Gran Hotel El Convento. They also acquire a casino license but never operated it because the hotel would close in six months for renovations.
Puerto Rico’s government invested $1.4 million to modernize the hotel, the first renovations in the 20 years since it first opened and they proved so extensive that the hotel was shut for 10 months, from July 1982 to mid-April 1983. The facelift included weatherproofing half the courtyard to shield guests when it rained by placing a plastic canopy over the bar and dining area. Five years later, in 1986, the hotel was renovated again. Through the years, wallboard was nailed over arches and concrete slathered over the original brick walls. Since red carpeting was considered trendy it was glued over the handmade tile floors. In its final years, the Gran Hotel El Convento had become a shabby old hotel on a historic site with remnants of past refinements that evoked considerable nostalgia.
The New El Convento
Puerto Rico’s government had made a serious effort to get out of owning hotels. The first sold was the most famous, Gran Hotel El Convento, to a group of San Juan business executives. It closed in December 1995 for redesign and a different concept that combines the old with the new.The first two floors are now designed to feature open-air restaurants and cafes, meeting and banquet rooms. The hotel, which now occupies the top four floors – part of the second floor has been converted to new guest rooms has a private entrance and keyed elevator. The integrity and beauty of the original structure is intact and completely restored. Its cost exceeds $15 million or about $275,000 per room.
The hotel has returned to its original name, Hotel El Convento. It opened in January 1997, 35 years after the original El Convento Hotel and was immediately chosen by CONDE NAST TRAVELER as one of the 23 best new hotels of the world. The reopening of the hotel marked the 346th anniversary of the convent site, a national historic landmark.
In recent years, the readers of both CONDE NAST TRAVELER and TRAVEL & LEISURE again voted El Convento one of the world’s best places to stay. In 2002, the hotel was featured in the May issue of Architectural Digest, which showcased the “celestial spirit” of this luxury landmark.
Hotel El Convento is a proud member of the Historic Hotels of America
National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is an American member-supported organization that was founded in 1949 by congressional charter to support preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods through a range of programs and activities, including the publication of Preservation...
and of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, the only hotel to hold these distinctions in Puerto Rico.
After being opened for one year, AAA
American Automobile Association
AAA , formerly known as the American Automobile Association, is a federation of 51 independently operated motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a not-for-profit member service organization with more than 51 million members. AAA provides services to its members such as travel, automotive,...
awarded Hotel El Convento Four Diamonds, a distinction it holds today.
The hotel is designated “official guest house” of the government of Puerto Rico for visiting heads of state and dignitaries.
Hotel El Convento is for travelers who enjoy luxury lodgings with fine quality and European services in a truly Old World environment that is under the American flag.