# Alvear Palace Hotel

The Alvear Palace Hotel is a luxury hotel in Avenida Alvear in Recoleta, an upscale neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It opened in 1932 and, after extensive refurbishment, reopened in 1994.

## History

The hotel was built by Buenos Aires businessman and socialite Dr. Rafael de Miero, who had been to Paris in the early 1920s and wanted to bring a comparably grand Belle Epoque hotel to his then-flourishing hometown. He bought and demolished a large house on the corner of Avenida Alvear and Ayacucho in 1922, which began the decade-long on-again, off-again project, which finally opened in 1932. A success, it was expanded in 1940, consuming another old mansion on Avenida Alvear.
In 1970, ownership passed to the 26-year-old Andreas von Salm-Kyrburg Wernitz, Duke of Hornes, Spanish cousin of King Juan Carlos I, who presided over the hotel's slow decline as a result of labour disputes and a general Argentinian economic stagnation. With bankruptcy threatening, in 1978, Wernitz sold the hotel to the Aragon Hotel Group, and since 1984, it's been part of David Sutton Dabbah's Alvear Luxury Hotels.
It was renovated in 1984, and again in 2004.

## Anecdotes

* In 1948 Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta died in the hotel.
* In 1962, actor Tony Curtis and his family (Janet Leigh, Kelly Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis) stayed in room 606 during the filming of Taras Bulba.
* In 1964, in room 805, actress Juliette Mayniel tried to commit suicide when she learned that her husband Vittorio Gassman was deceiving her. A hotel employee saved her just in time.
* On May 4, 1992, the Swedish music group Roxette recorded the songs "Here Comes the Weekend" and "So Far Away" in room 603; the songs were included in their album Tourism.
* Christina Onassis bought suite 334 only to speak on the phone during her frequent stays in Buenos Aires.
* Horacio Ferrer Lived in the hotel for 38 years until his death in 2014.

### In Media

* The 1964 movie Il Gaucho was filmed largely in the hotel.
* The 1995 movie The Things of Love, Part II by director Jaime Chávarri has scenes filmed in the hotel.
* In 2009 the hotel was featured in the movie Walt & El Grupo, about when Walt Disney came to South America in 1942.

## Notable guests

* Ted Turner
* Arthur Miller and Inge Morath
* David Em
* Jacques Chirac
* Antonio Banderas
* Sharon Stone
* Melanie Griffith
* Sean Connery
* Gina Lollobrigida
* Kenzo
* Akihito and Michiko
* Michael Schumacher
* Al Pacino
* Alain Delon
* Marcello Mastroianni
* Catherine Deneuve
* Salma Hayek
* Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Sofía of Spain
* Alan Parker
* Carolina Herrera
* Beatrix of the Netherlands
* Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Máxima of the Netherlands
* Wim Wenders
* Nelson Mandela
* Sofia Loren
* Helmut Kohl
* Walt Disney
* Rafael Alberti
* Fidel Castro
* Shaquille O'Neal
* Francis Ford Coppola
* Karl Lagerfeld
* Claudia Schiffer
* Rod Stewart
* John Malkovich
* Tom Cruise
* Omar Sharif
* Muhammad Ali
* Margrethe II of Denmark
* Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta
* Orson Welles
* Isabelle Huppert
* Harald V of Norway and Queen Sonja of Norway
* Vladimir Putin
* Angela Merkel
* Martti Ahtisaari
* Mario Vargas Llosa
* Charles, Prince of Wales
* B.B. King
* Alvin Toffler
* Daniel Barenboim
* Jane Fonda
* Jimmy Carter
* Ayrton Senna
* Muhammad Ali
* Roxette