Tigre Hotel
The Tigre Hotel stood on the banks of the Luján River, in Paseo Victorica, Tigre, near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Inaugurated on 12 January 1890, it soon became an important social, tourist and sporting centre, not only for the people of Tigre, but also for porteños. Designed by the engineer Emilio Mitre (son of the Argentine president Bartolomé Mitre), the hotel had 3 floors, a lift and 50 rooms with a ground floor dining room seating 200 people. There were salons for smoking, billiards, and for ladies. The hotel had a confiteria, tennis courts, a cricket pitch, an area for roller skating, and there was a garage for cars. An Andalusian patio and a winter garden were constructed and in 1895 the hotel was authorised to open a casino.
In 1916 various repairs and improvements were made to the building at the height of the Belle Époque as the hotel became the place where the elite of society of the time met and stayed and was famous for its dancing parties. The economic crisis in the 1930s took its toll and in February 1939 the hotel closed its doors. A year later the building was demolished.
Today there is sometimes a confusion between the Tigre Hotel and the Tigre Club that was built next to the Hotel in 1912 and is still standing. Following its 1979 designation as a National Historic Monument, a decade of refurbishments ensued. The Tigre Art Museum was opened in 2006.
References
Graciela Clemente, Tigre y Delta, Grijalbo Mondadori, Buenos Aires, 2004.