High Flyers Adored
Thankfully the money’s kept rolling in (and out) so it’s another suitcase in another bedroom. Stretching a rainbow tour of beauty. The art of the possible.
Rest assured, not any old bedroom. Suite dreams in Buenos Aires’ finest hotel. Upscale Recoleta here we come. More than just a little touch of star quality. Don’t cry for us Argentina.
The American writer Waldo Frank evoked the spirit of the city in 1931, “Houses are a chaos and a confusion; Spanish, Creole, Gothic, Baroque, Plateresque, Moorish, Neoclassical, Georgian, Victorian, French of all epochs …” An architectural montage. A thousand stars.
Over 40 years later, local writer Eduardo Crawley would record, “Buenos Aires playacts at being a city that really belongs in the northern hemisphere, and although it somehow drifted to the Southern Atlantic, it’s still attached to its parental body of Europe by an imaginary umbilical cord.” Oh what a circus!
Algodon Mansion fuses French flair with Latin passion and German precision. More Le Grand Trianon than Le Petit Trianon. A luxurious and directional venture, this 1912 landmark has been reimagined by leading German born architect Los Angeles based Gerhard Heusch.
Original grandeur is complemented by a wealth of materials and interventions: walnut parquet; marble tiles; silk wall coverings; taffeta curtains; gold leaf ceilings; alabaster bar. And a waterfall cascading down four watery storeys to the lobby.
A bottle of private collection wine from Algodon’s very own 130 hectare vineyard sits on our writing table. Doesn’t every hotel have a vineyard? Layers of honeycomb are the new canapés.
Time to relax in the rooftop swimming pool, admiring the incidental brutalism of the surrounding skyline. Far below, a brass band marches along Erythrina lined Bougainville filled Guido. La belle époque is back.
