Some Hotels in La Habana: Nacional, Parque Central, Riviera

Some of these older buildings may be hotels. They illustrate the architectural detail which remains, despite decades of insufficient funds for upkeep.

The Hotel Nacional, above, operates today and also remembers its heyday with posters of famous visitors from the decades, here the '30s, the '40s, and the '50s.

Efficiency in Mojito production at La Nacional! 

Lobby of the Parque Central, an Iberostar property.

The Riviera, built in the '50s and not a form of architecture we admire today, has a colorful pre-revolutionary history, as quoted here from Wikipedia:

The hotel was owned and operated by Riviera de Cuba S.A. company, which was established by Meyer Lansky, though the incorporation papers listed the names of Miami hotel operators, a Canadian textile company and several others. It was built at a cost of US $8 million, most of which was provided by the Bank for Economic and Social Development (BANDES), a state-run development bank set up by Fulgencio Batista.^[1]

Lansky’s investment partners included some of Las Vegas’s biggest power brokers, among them his old friends Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman, Sam Tucker, and Wilbur Clark of the Desert Inn (and of Lansky’s Hotel Nacional casino); Edward Levinson of the Fremont Hotel; and Hyman Abrams and Morris Rosen of the Flamingo Las Vegas (of Bugsy Siegel fame). As with all of Lansky’s dealings, he and his underworld associates’ ownership of the Riviera was hidden behind layers of managers and front men.

Work began on the 21-story hotel, located on the Malecón right next to the Meliá Cohiba Hotel, in December 1956 in the midst of the revolutionary upheaval. Not since the Nacional was constructed was there such resort excitement in Cuba. Already envisioned as “The Riviera of the Caribbean”, it was considered the epitome of resort-construction, and certainly was one of the more costly hotels in Cuba. It was also the first of its kind in Havana to have air-conditioned rooms. Each room had a view of the Gulf of Mexico, with the hotel itself within sight of not only busy Havana but also the quiet splendor of the residential Miramar and Country Club sections.