Hotel de Oriente

We all know that the grand dame of hotels in Manila is the venerable Manila Hotel that overlooks the bay and the Luneta. So much of our city’s history has involved this once staid and resplendent landmark that we may forget that at one time, there was another first class hotel that was the only one considered quite elegant enough to attract foreign tourists arriving in Manila as well as being linked with its own history. The Hotel de Oriente was built in 1889 by Don Manuel Perez Marqueti, the father of Luis Perez Samanillo, owner of the Perez Samanillo building in Escolta. It was a first class hotel and indeed, at one time was the only one in the entire archipelago. Don Perez Marqueti selected the site in Binondo at the Plaza Calderon de la Barca (now Plaza Lorenzo Ruiz) next to the La Insular Cigarette and Cigar Factory. Its location was quite convenient, just a few blocks off the docks of the Pasig, next to the Chinese retail businesses and close to the busy Escolta shopping district, as well as the old walled city of Intramuros. The Spanish architect Juan Jose Huervas y Arizmendi, who also designed the La Insular building, was commissioned to design the hotel at a cost of $100,000. It had three floors with 83 rooms, stables for 25 horses, an attic, and a broad entrance floored and roofed in red clay tiles. It was an elegant building with seven bays along its front. On the ground floor was a narrow arcade with Moorish arches, with the arch on the central bay rising to the top of the second floor. The windows and ventanillas on the lower floor were protected by iron grilles. There were windows also on the entresuelo (mezzanine). The windows on the upper floor had sliding glass shutters and ventanillas with iron grilles. #scenicspotguide #travelinspiration #luxuryhotel #decembertravel #unforgettableexperiences #urbanexplorer