Normandie Hotel

Hotel Normandie
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
View of the Normandie Hotel from Munoz Rivera Avenue
Location:	Ponce de Leon Ave. and San Geronimo St., San Juan, Puerto Rico
Coordinates:	18°27′52″N 66°5′15″W / 18.46444°N 66.0875°W / 18.46444; -66.0875Coordinates: 18°27′52″N 66°5′15″W / 18.46444°N 66.0875°W / 18.46444; -66.0875
Built:	1939
Architect:	Richard,Raul; Rexach,Felix Benitez
Architectural style:	Art Deco
Governing body:	DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
NRHP Reference#:	80004295[1]
Added to NRHP:	August 29, 1980

The Normandie Hotel is a hotel located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The hotel originally opened on October 10, 1942. Its design was inspired by the ocean liner SS Normandie. It features the same art deco design as the ship that inspired it, and the hotel's roof sign is one of the two signs that adorned the top deck of the Normandie but were removed from it during an early refitting. It is a fine example of what came to be known as the Streamline Moderne architecture style.

The Normandie Hotel was the brainchild of Puerto Rican engineer Félix Benítez. The engineer met his future wife while on a trip aboard the SS Normandie. As a tribute to his French wife, Moineau, Benítez decided to construct a structure that imitated the lavish settings of the ocean liner. Designed by architect Raúl Reichard (1908-1996), the hotel began construction in 1938. The hotel's exterior was designed to resemble a luxury liner, elongated and curved in front, with portal-shape windows and lights. Inside, the hotel features art deco design, complete with Roman, Egyptian, and French details, high ceilings, and corridors looking down into a central skylighted atrium. Designers and artists from the Dominican Republic, France, Spain, and Puerto Rico all contributed to the hotel's overall construction and when it opened on October 10, 1942 it became an instant sensation among the island's social elite. Completed at a cost of more than US$2,000,000, the hotel catered to many major Hollywood and Latin American film stars such as Cantinflas, Libertad Lamarque and Jorge Negrete. The hotel also served as a performing arts venue for many of Puerto Rico's top entertainers such as Ruth Fernández, Myrta Silva, Sylvia Rexach, and Carmen Delia Dipini. After being closed and abandoned in the 1960s, the hotel was restored in the early 1990s after it underwent massive renovations due to heavy damage caused by Hurricane Georges in 1998. After fixing the damages, the hotel continued operations until 2004 when it underwent an interior renovation.

In early 2005, the 173-room hotel reopened after its refurbishing. It's presently closed while it undergoes an extensive renovation.

The Normandie Hotel has been declared a national historic site was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Interior Department's Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service on August 29, 1980.^[2]

Popular culture

• The music video for singer Sade's song King of Sorrow (from her Lovers Rock album) was filmed in and around the hotel by director Sophie Muller.^[3]
• The hotel served as a locale for one of the four stories that helped compose the storyline for the 2001 film 12 Horas directed by Puerto Rican director Raúl Marchand Sánchez.

References

1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
2. ^ Puerta de Tierra: Hotel Normandie: Archived June 30, 2008 at the Wayback Machine
3. ^ King of Sorrow music video from YouTube

• "La Môme Moineau" by Michel Ferracci-Porri.The first biography of Moineau and Félix Benitez. Editions Normant ISBN 9782915685282

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