Hotel Mercedes

Hotel Mercedes in Santiago. His story Built on Calle 30 de Marzo on the corner of Máximo Gómez, it was owned by Don Alfonso Aguayo. It is built of reinforced concrete and its great architectural beauty has very curious elements on its four floors. Its first level has three entrances with a window next to it; the lateral edges of its frames show a kind of pilasters attached to the wall whose body has in the center a vertical ornament with colored tiles, while the central entrance has a semicircular arch with triple edges whose upper part encloses a skylight with glass of colors. The work was built by the civil engineer Romualdo García Veras for the Spanish brothers Gabriel and Francisco Robledos. It was inaugurated on December 1, 1929. At that time it was the most elegant, luxurious and comfortable hotel that existed in the city, to the point of being considered the best in the Republic Its doors have a grid with bars forming the decoration of circles and double curved curves, and when turning the corner the wall still preserves the sign that says: Calle Las Damas, which was the first name that the one that today is Máximo Gómez had. The second level has the same type of doors, but they differ in that after the fourth door it has - embedded in the wall - a decoration with tiles forming four rosettes enclosed in a frame, and a balcony with ornate metal balusters that curves when you get to the corner. Already in the third level, the doors have totally changed the edge of the arch, whose shape is that of a half pentagon. Finally, still on Máximo Gómez street, its sidewalk preserves some of the letters that read Hotel Mercedes, on the sides of which it also has a line of colored mosaics, as it was customary in those times to place the name of the store on them. The last level is very unique, because the largest ballroom (former Roof Garden) in the entire country was installed there. Its sides, with very wide open segmental arches, allowed air to enter the enormous hall, which has a continuous balcony with normal balusters, and an angularly cut ceiling. But those are the sides, because in the central part corresponding to Máximo Gómez street, it presents a curious protruding attic of triangular formation that has five small windows. This emblematic place served as a lodging for the main political personalities of the last century, and it was also the place where former president Joaquín Balaguer celebrated his graduation as a lawyer, along with other colleagues of the time. The social activities presentation in society of families, acts of all kinds were carried out here, with its show room on the fourth floor, which was a dance and activities room, the most spacious and central that the region had. It has been closed for nearly 40 years, after its former owners, the Robledos Brothers, sold the property to the Sociedad Mobiliaria Vizcaya CxA.