The city recovers 133 years of history

The rehabilitation work on this building from the end of the 19th century, valued at 25 million euros, stopped with the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, and is now being resumed.

Cross port feel again the hope of recovering the 133 years of history treasured by the emblematic Hotel Taoreither. Without hotel use for 48 years and practically closed to the public since the casino moved to Lago Martiánez in 2006, this late 19th century building continues to be a symbol of the city’s tourist splendor and Canary Islands. Tropical Hoteles took on the challenge in 2019, stopped the project with the arrival of the Covid pandemic in 2020, and has just announced in Fitur that in the next few days it will resume construction with the goal of reopening the Hotel Taoro in June 2024.

With an investment of more than 25 million eurosthe Council of Tenerife and Tropical Hotels want to give a new life to this piece of the history of tourism in the Canary Islands and in Spain. In the words of the group’s president, Ignacio Polanco, “our intention is for it to recover the vitality it once had, focused on tourists not only sun and sand, but also the city, who like to enjoy our culture, gastronomy, traditions and wealth. landscape”.

To reach this moment, the project has also had to overcome some administrative and bureaucratic obstacles, as explained by the councilor for Sustainable City, David Hernández (ACP): “The work of the technical and legal staff of the Sustainable City and Planning area of this council has allowed us to overcome two important milestones, for which we have worked diligently until we got here. The approval of the final technical project in June 2021, and the drafting of the provisional ordinance to redistribute endowment and equipment uses in two public plots involved in this project and its publication in the Official Gazette of the Province (BOP) in September 2022 , which gave free rein to the beginning of the works».

Once all the administrative obstacles have been overcome and the uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Puerto de la Cruz envisions the recovery of “one of the jewels of the city, an emblematic building full of history and experiences”, in the words of the mayor , Framework gonzalez (PSOE). For the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín (PSOE), this action will serve to have a new “destination benchmark, not only in the municipality, but in the region and on the island.”

The Hotel Taoro was inaugurated in 1890 as a large luxury hotel that, for almost a century, was a benchmark for national tourism. It housed members of royalty, such as the Duke of Windsor, Edward VIII; the King of Spain Alfonso XIII, the Dukes of Kent, or King Albert I of Belgium; world-famous writers such as Agatha Christie, and was visited by key figures in the history of Spain such as Primo de Rivera, Francisco Franco or the emeritus kings Juan Carlos and Sofía, who participated in a gala dinner in 1985, when it was only the remembered Casino Taoro.

The history of this building began in 1888 with the merger of two hotel companies that formed the Taoro Compañía de Hoteles and Sanatorium del Valle de La Orotava. The works, with a design by the architect Adolph Coquet, began that year and concluded in 1893, although the central pavilion was finished before, in 1890. In its beginnings, the Taoro had capacity for 250 guests and offered a carriage service to connect with the urban area of ​​Puerto de la Cruz.

Despite its undeniable national and international prestige, it was never a good business, which led its promoters to lease it to a German company between 1905 and 1913. When it returned to its promoters, World War I was already looming on the horizon. The 1920s were also difficult for a hotel that lived off luxury winter tourism, and which faced a double tragedy in 1929: the world crash and a huge fire that destroyed the west wing and half of the central pavilion. It was partially reopened in December of that year, “but things were never the same as before”, as Agustín Guimerá Ravina recalls in his work El Hotel Taoro, one hundred years of tourism in Tenerife (1890-1990).

The Great Depression complicated the 1930s until the Civil War, first, and World War II, later, added even more difficulties to a management that, between 1935 and 1950, passed into the hands of Enrique Talg Schulz. The Cabildo de Tenerife, encouraged by the captain general of the Canary Islands Francisco García-Escámez, bought the hotel in March 1945, and kept it under the management of Talg until 1950, when it was leased to the HUSA company. The tourist boom did not mean the takeoff of this pioneering establishment, which had become outdated. Its history lasted until HUSA finally closed it as a hotel in 1975, 48 years ago. In July 1979 it was reopened as the Casino Taoro, which remained there for 27 years, until the controversial transfer of July 2006 to Lago Martiánez. Since then it has only served as a temporary headquarters for the Urban Development Consortium for the Rehabilitation of Puerto de la Cruz, the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan) and for occasional scientific meetings. The annexed conference center has remained in operation.

Virtually unused between 2006 and 2019, the recovery of the building of the old Taoro hotel had almost become an obsession for the governments of the tourist city and the Cabildo de Tenerife, which for more than a decade called up to four unsuccessful competitions for its rehabilitation and commissioning. The award was void for different reasons, until in May 2019, on the fifth attempt, the Cabildo awarded it to Tropical Hoteles. Four years later, this group resumes some works destined to make history in Puerto de la Cruz.