Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Spain / Madrid / The Principal Madrid
The Principal Madrid
Madrid, Spain · Unico Hotels · Accessible Luxury
Gran Vía 2 went up between 1914 and 1917 for La Gran Peña, a private club of Spanish officers and noblemen who still keep the ground floor, the first floor and one of the roofs. The hotel took the storeys above and did something odd with them: you arrive at a reception on the sixth floor, next to the Ático restaurant that the two-star chef Ramón Freixa opened in 2014, with terraces out over the ornamented rooftops of the boulevard. It was the first five-star hotel on Gran Vía. The 76 rooms are all below you.
- 76 rooms
- Opened 2014
- Neighborhood: Gran Vía
- Architect: Eduardo Gambra Sanz and Antonio de Zumárraga Egozcue, with Jesús Carrasco-Muñoz Encina (1914-1917); hotel conversion by José Javier García Alba (approved 2006)
About The Principal Madrid
- The street outside was christened Avenida del Conde de Peñalver, renamed Avenida de Rusia during the Civil War, then Avenida de José Antonio, and only officially became the Gran Vía on 25 January 1982.
- A commemorative tablet went up on this building at the end of 1917 to mark the opening of the first stretch of Madrid's great street, the city coat of arms set in an arch above the name.
- La Gran Peña was founded in 1869 in the Café Suizo and moved into the finished building with its own door at Gran Vía 2. The club is still there.
- The upper floors first opened as a hotel in 2009, the Ada Palace, which shut amid controversy in 2014. The Principal replaced it that October after four months of work.
- Eduardo Gambra Sanz and Antonio de Zumárraga drew the building in Spanish Renaissance style, and the slender pinnacles meant to crown it were swapped early for shorter ones.
History
The hotel occupies the upper floors of the Edificio Gran Peña at Gran Vía 2, built between 1914 and 1917 to the designs of Eduardo Gambra Sanz and Antonio de Zumárraga Egozcue, with technical revisions by Jesús Carrasco-Muñoz Encina. It was commissioned by La Gran Peña, an exclusive private club of Spanish military officers and noblemen founded in 1869 in the Café Suizo, and the club never left: it still holds the ground floor, the first floor and one of the rooftop terraces, entering from Gran Vía 2. The upper storeys have always been let to other tenants, among them the Automóvil Club, the Instituto de Ingenieros Civiles and, on the second floor, an early hotel called the Nuevo Bilbaíno.
A controlled conversion approved by the city in 2006 and directed by the architect José Javier García Alba turned part of the building into the Ada Palace hotel, which opened at the end of 2009 with its entrance around the corner at Calle Marqués de Valdeiglesias 1. It closed in 2014 amid some controversy. Pau Guardans then took the space for Único Hotels, and The Principal Madrid opened in October 2014 as the group's flagship after a fast four-month fit-out: 76 rooms and suites in a 4,200 square metre building, and the first five-star hotel on the boulevard.
The plan is deliberately inverted. Guests come up to a reception on the sixth floor, where the Ático restaurant, bar and open fireplaces look out through tall windows at the ornamented Art Nouveau and Art Deco rooflines of Gran Vía. The Catalan chef Ramón Freixa, who holds two Michelin stars in his own name, set up the kitchen at the opening. La Pérgola, glazed and usable all winter, sits a floor below the open summer rooftop, which runs from roughly May to October among olive trees and red parasols.
The setting
This is the eastern head of the Gran Vía, the boulevard Madrid drove through its old streets from 1910 as the city's great urban reform, and the hotel stands at number 2 on the corner of Marqués de Valdeiglesias. Everything is walkable from here: Chueca immediately north, the theatres and neon of the Gran Vía west toward Callao, the Círculo de Bellas Artes and Cibeles a few minutes east, and Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor and the Prado all within a quarter of an hour on foot.
Amenities
- 24-hour parking available
- Tailor-made gastronomy for every event
- Five-star service with attention to every detail
Open The Principal Madrid in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
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