Cuba: Havana - Part 2

Beyond the hotel world, the standard of villas is shooting up. Leticia Villamontes Leyva acquired her 1920’s Petit Chateau mini-mansion in Vedado, one of the most exclusive districts in Havana, after a 12-year “permuta” the complicated bureaucratic system of house swaps Cubans had to rely on before the housing market was legalised in 2011. She and her husband restored the house over a four-year period, maintaining its original layout and palatial scale, so there are four vast bedrooms, a roomy courtyard garden and a gigantic roof terrace.

Original stained-glass, Moorish tiling, panelling, cornicing, wrought ironwork, pillaring and a marble staircase have all been touched up.

The seven-room Villa Flora in the equally exclusive Miramar neighbourhood opened last year and is less than a five-minute walk from the nightspot du jour, the multimedia, multi-function warehouse space Fabrica de Arte Cubana. The villa is a little off the beaten tourist track but comes with a handy Chevrolet 1956 and chauffeur. Here, an opening in a sumptuous coral wall reveals a beautiful 1940’s suburban home that sleeps eight, with a garden bedecked in fantastic creepers and fossil palms , which remind us that the Bosque de la Habana, the city’s most fantastical city wood, is on the doorstep here, along with the beautiful peacock-green Rio Almendares, which divides the suburbs of Vedado and Miramar.

This is a family house reworked as a villa with palm-themed wallpaper, with hammocks and swinging chairs, white wrought iron and cane furniture evoking a laid-back, mid-century tropical feel. Upcycled vintage tiles and modern bathrooms join antique furniture pieces and Cuban contemporary art.

Another recent creation, ARTeHOTEL, functions as a four-room boutique hotel in the Vedado district. Creator is the photographer Hector Garrido, who along with his actress wife Laura de la Uz has created a place to stay that showcases Havana’s cultural possibilities. The house was chosen for the trees that sway outside and the light-filled rooms, its original state, however, needed 50 labourers and more than a year to sort out. Interior designer Ute Mergner has twinned bespoke furniture and reconditioned colonial pieces with Cuban contemporary art and photography and each room is inspired by Cuban personalities in the world of music, poetry, film and photography.

Also worth a peak in the Vedado district is the art-filled, five-bedroom LA Reserva boutique hotel and its tropical garden.


Continued part 3