We have a great guest post from writer Elliott Mackle who recently stayed in the Hotel Melia Recoleta here on About.com Argentina Travel. It’s famed as among the buildings in Buenos Aires where Evita had once lived. Make sure to look at all our other articles on Evita related sites.

Posadas, the Rodeo Drive of the Recoleta district, is now home to such ultra-respectable names as Ferragamo, Four Seasons and Park Hyatt.


But in 1942, when the aspiring radio actress Eva Duarte acquired a small apartment at Posadas No. 1557, quarter did have a seedy side, in spite of still being well-to-do. There were parts thronged at night with streetwalkers and slumming merrymakers, and home to bordellos, cabarets and gambling halls. Members of the armed forces maintained garconnieres in which to entertain favored women. The neighborhood was a center of bohemian life. Some remnants of this still exist on Guido Street.

Much has changed in the neighborhood and for Posadas No. 1557. After several changes of purpose and ownership, the building now houses the Melia Recoleta Plaza, a boutique hotel polished to a degree that would befit not the unknown Eva Duarte but the most powerful and influential South American woman of her day, Evita Peron.

According to a footnoted brochure provided by the hotel company, the pair of mid-rise buildings that make up the hotel were erected in the nineteen-thirties and named “Residence Golden Home.” Duarte, a budding model and actress, had moved to Buenos Aires in 1935, initially renting cheap hotel rooms in the Congreso District and on Corrientes Avenue or sharing apartments with other performers.

 

According to the Melia brochure, Duarte rented the small apartment in the Golden Home after gaining regular gigs as a radio actress. The rental was made possible when strings were pulled by one Colonel Domingo Mercante, a well-connected Army officer who may or may not have been Duarte’s protector. Given the neighborhood at the time, such a liaison seems more than likely. It’s also likely that Mercante had some role in introducing Duarte to Juan Domingo Peron, a fellow officer. But we may never know the exact details.

Peron visited and courted Duarte in Posadas but by then she had moved a few doors down to No. 1561. They married in 1944 and the latter was their first marital residence.

Peron’s interest in 1557 was long term. He set up a sewing shop in what is now the hotel’s bistro. Besides creating glamorous gowns for his wife, the enterprise turned out dresses for the wives of other high-ranking officers, repaired the uniforms of their husbands and tailored civilian clothes for influential politicians.

In an act of almost casual nepotism, Peron handed over possession of 1557 to his dissolute brother in law, Juan Duarte. Constantly in debt, Juan Duarte’s interests in the property were eventually seized by a court and sold off. Facing corruption charges after the death of his own protector, Evita, Duarte might have killed himself in 1953. There is also strong speculation he was murdered.

Early in the nineteen-eighties, a group of private investors acquired and renovated the property. After a series of disputes and crises, the property passed first to Majorcan investors and then to Argentinian entrepreneurs. After further improvements, a management contract was signed with Melia Hotels and Resorts. The hotel reopened in 2005.

In many ways, the hotel is a shrine to Evita. Glamorous, life-size portrait-photographs decorate elevator lobbies on each floor. The lobby is furnished with tasteful antiques. Rooms follow the lobby’s example: reproduction antique furniture, plush armchairs, linens embroidered with the MRP initials of the hotel, high-end amenities and fixtures in the bath, a safe hidden in the closet, television, minibar and tieback drapes over scrim window shades. Some interior rooms have a less pleasing feature, however: windows with views of either cramped courtyards or blank walls. We had one of the latter. It didn’t matter a bit.

A florist creates unique arrangements for the lobby, bar and bistro. Excellent food and polite, slightly formal service insure the comfort of guests. Evita would be pleased.