153 Obispo, Havana, Cuba
Since colonial times, the territory of Old Havana, where the hotel is now located, was built up with numerous family houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Spanish merchant Antolín Blanco Arias bought a family house on this site from his colleague Manuel Lierrandi y Tome. The new owner demolished the very old house to build a hotel, the project of which was undertaken by architect Luis Wise Hernández.
The Ambos Mundos Hotel ("Both Worlds") is a five-story, square-shaped hotel in the eclectic style of the 20th century. It was built in 1924 on the site of the former family house at the intersection of Obispo and Mercaderes streets in the Old Havana district (Cuba). In the 1930s, this hotel was owned by the Asper family. It attracted writers, actors and actresses, as well as many Americans. The hotel served as the residence of the famous writer Ernest Hemingway in the 1930s. From its windows, there is a view of the streets of old Havana and the ocean — this is exactly why the writer loved Ambos Mundos.
Since then, the hotel has gained worldwide fame because of its most famous guest: in 1932, the room on the top (fifth) floor became the "first home" in Cuba for writer Ernest Hemingway, who enjoyed views of old Havana and the sea in the harbor from there, where he often fished from his yacht "Pilar."
He enthusiastically wrote to his friend John D. Passos (also a writer): "In this hotel, you can get a good, clean room with a bathroom and a view of the harbor and cathedral — you can see the entire entrance to the port and the sea for 2 US dollars." The view — 2.50 for two people.
For Hemingway, the hotel was a "very good place to write," as he himself said. In his hotel room, he finished the book "Death in the Afternoon" (1932) and began the novels "Green Hills of Africa" (1935) and "To Have and Have Not" (1937).
Hemingway rented the room until mid-1939, when he moved his winter residence from Key West (an American island 90 miles from Cuba) to a house on the hills near Havana: Finca Vigía, where he lived with Martha Gellhorn, whom he married in 1940. Hemingway began his novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls," a novel about the Spanish Civil War, in the room at the Ambos Mundos Hotel on March 1, 1939.
Today, his room No. 511, decorated in Art Deco and Art Nouveau styles, is maintained as if the author has just left it, and serves as a small museum in the center of the hotel. The room preserves the writer’s typewriter and several personal letters and telegrams addressed to Hemingway. In the corner of the hotel lobby on the first floor, there are also two walls with framed photographs dedicated to Hemingway. Near the hotel is the bar "La Bodeguita del Medio," which the writer is said to have liked to visit.
In various sources, many of which are unverified, other literary "celebrities" are mentioned among the hotel’s clients, such as the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, the Spanish writer Ramón del Valle-Inclán, or Emilio Roig — the historiographer of Havana until the 1960s.
In 1987, the hotel underwent a minor restoration, and in 1997 a more extensive reconstruction was completed to transform it into a luxury hotel reminiscent of its heyday. In 2004–2005, technical work continued, including cleaning and painting the building’s facades.
Today, you can stay in one of the hotel’s standard rooms, decorated in the style of Hemingway’s former room.
Sources:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Амбос_Мундос_(Гавана)
https://ria.ru/20090721/178078742.html
https://www.hemingwayhavana.com/ru/hemingway-tour
http://pro-insider.ru/oteli-v-kotoryh-ostanavlivalis-pisateli/
