The climb from Zocodover to the Alcázar, formerly called Carlos V, has always been a transit route for residents and travelers of all conditions, although noisy inns did not take root there, but rather selected “inns”. Before 1840, that of Europe is mentioned; in 1850 that of Ruano (later renamed Imperial) and, in 1885, the Hotel Norte. The latter was located on the right sidewalk, on the corner of the narrow street of Barrio Rey which, after being renovated in 1915, opened a unique protected Mudejar façadesince 1998, in the Special Plan for the Historic Center of Toledo. Despite its original elevation, the paternity of its traces has remained unknown, which we already know come from Alvaro Gonzalez Saz (1883-1936), architect of the Urban Heritage Cadastre Service of the Treasury Delegation of Toledo since 1911 and, briefly, municipal architect (1929-1931), whose legacy we will return to on another occasion.
A lucky chef
Eladio Ortiz AncosMayor of Toledo in 1885, led North Foundation until his death in 1900. The owner of the property, Ildefonsa Gomez Palomo, He sold it in 1903 for 15,000 pesetas to Marcelino Fernández Martín, head chef of the María Cristina school, to announce it today as the Hotel Toledano. He probably bought it with the 42,000 pesetas of the third prize of the lottery of the Christmas draw of 1901, which left 200,000 to the center. Since 1906, the winner was already among the biggest contributors. He had to invest more money in improving the inn and modernizing the catering service. In 1907, Marcelino sold the house for 22,000 pesetas to Eugenio Ortiz Pedrazaowner and tenacious Romanonist advisor, with whom he agreed to remain tenant of the business until 1912. Ortiz, owner in his own right, then rented it to “Salvador Vila y Hermano”, renaming it Hotel París. Among others, the aviator Lacombe, politicians, popular bullfighters and constant commercial agents stayed there.
The great activity of the Military Academy and the creation of the El Greco Museum (1910) encouraged lodging. Opposite, the Imperial Hotel was still in operation and, almost on the border of Paris, in 1911 another businessman opened the Granullaque Hotel in the Plaza de Barrio Rey. All this must have motivated Eugenio Ortiz to renovate the inn-house in 1915. However, the hotel function ended in 1918. In addition to converting it into a house, he rented part of the property to Telégrafos after closing his office on Alfonso XII. Street. In 1933, this service was transferred to the post office on Calle de la Plata and Ortiz’s daughter rented the property to the Provincial Labor Delegation. A chain of transfers and various uses followed that details the study of Welcome Maquedano (2023). In 1993, REPALSA, the owner of the building, undertook a complete interior renovation.
Building, author and style
In 1907, the former housing fund On the ground floor there was a patio, a well, a dining room, a kitchen, several rooms and an old stable with access to the Crossing Barrio Rey. The first floor was the main house, the other two rooms were used for travelers. In 1913, a basement is mentioned and, on the ground floor, the already glazed patio, the kitchen, a sink and a bedroom. On the first floor two rooms for guests, on the second twelve and fifteen on the third under the roof.
In September 1915, Eugenio Ortiz He applied for a building permit to “modify the façade of his house”, on the slope of the Alcázar, on the corner of Barrio Rey Street. He presented the plans and the report – unfortunately lost today -, without the name of the technician being mentioned in the municipal minutes. In December, he was authorized to raise a plant. In March 1916, given the narrowness of the façade and its “Mudejar style”, it was accepted that gargoyles would be placed next to the attic roof instead of gutters. This sparked a debate as it violated the ordinances, although some opinions called for rewarding “owners and architects” who built “with certain styles”, as Florentino Serrano had also done, in 1914, in his house overlooking Cuatro Calles. In April 1916, The Eco of Toledo recorded the death of the master mason Pablo Ruiz Alconchelhighly appreciated for its “copy of the old construction”, without seeing the completion of the new facade of the Hôtel de Paris, the inauguration of which took place on the following June 22.
However, the work had already aroused interest in February 1916. The magazine Toledo published a poem by the journalist Javier Soravilla dedicated to “my precious Álvaro” [González Saz]. He considered him a “builder of buildings and builder of facades or Architect, which is the same and knowing how to do both the old and the modern.” He praised his attention to tradition rather than the “beauties of modernism” of Zocodover, foreign to “Toledan art.” But the architect’s official relationship with the hotel mansion dates back to 1913 as a land registry technician during the inspection of this property and its deeds. In 1915, Eugenio Ortiz must have contracted with him to renovate the property, and it is El Eco Toledano who confirms the paternity by reviewing the entrance speech of Gonzalez Saz at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Historical Sciences of Toledo on June 30, 1918. The newspaper notes the architect’s work on “remarkable facades and buildings, including the former Hôtel de Paris”, now transformed into the “Telegraphic House”.
On the slope of the Alcázar, without using masonry, González Saz used brick as the only material for the walls, openings and some details perhaps taken from the Mosque of Christ of LightIn the central body, topped with a tile, it followed the compositional scheme of two historic facades: the Posada de la Hermandad and the misnamed “Palace of King Don Pedro”.
The impressive railway station designed by Clavería in 1911 was contemporary with the hotel’s work. Both projects, as well as the Hotel Castilla (Joaquín Kramer, 1890) and other examples from various cities, were highlighted by the architect and theorist Luis María Cabello Lapiedra in his book The Spanish House (1917). He defends the “Hispanic” models against foreign influences, which they share Lampérez, Rucabado and Repullés among other colleagues or the Spanish Society of Friends of Art (1910). This “national architecture”, which developed after the crisis of the 1990s, revived the Plateresque, Renaissance and Baroque styles that resulted in the 1930s in models with visible regionalist nuances. An example of this evolution in Toledo is the Casino, a building located near the slope of the Alcazar, a project of Felipe Trigo (1922) which brings together disparate traditional details, although not very faithful to local tradition.
