Hotel Raquel

Originally built in 1905 for offices, fabric’s storage and deposit purposes, the building the hotel currently occupies reached three years later its current appearance, and by 1912 their dwellers had consolidated as a fabrics-importing company. Inspired in the art noveau style, Hotel Raquel seduces by its combination of beauty and sensuality typical of this ambience. Its biblical name and some of its spaces makes one remind of the Hebrew culture, present in several details of the decoration. The painstaking design highlights in all corners of the 25 rooms hotel, decorated with pictures from prestigious Cuban artists. An impressive skylight ceiling provides a special touch to this stopover, located near the Old and San Francisco squares. La Odalisca, art-deco statue of a seminaked woman, welcomes the newcomers, who find themselves at a beautiful Spanish-style inner patio, with columns of raw stone, lamps of the period and a stained-glass window made by the master Rosa María de la Terga. Austere in its decoration, the rooms contrast with the majestic public spaces of the hotel. Beam roofs and furniture of the period – originals and imitations – remind of the Cuba’s colonial past. Most of the rooms have balconies with a view to a street that reveals itself as one of the Havana’s busiest, half-way to the cultural pole of the oldest corner of the city. The hotel also features by the service of its restaurant La Floridana and the Maragato piano-bar.