Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires

Posadas 1086 is a short, quiet street a block from the roar of Avenida 9 de Julio, and the gates there open on to two buildings that could not be more different: a French-style mansion of 1916 with a mansard roof, and a tower of pale stone from 1992. Together they make the Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires, in Recoleta, the neighbourhood of the city's old money.

History

The mansion came first. It was built in 1916 for Félix de Alzaga Unzué and his wife, members of the landowning families who gave Buenos Aires its Parisian face in the years before the First World War, and it is the kind of house that the Argentine upper class built when it was among the richest in the world. In 1992 the mansion was restored and a tower raised beside it, and the two opened together as the Park Hyatt Buenos Aires. Four Seasons took over the management in 2002, and Park Hyatt moved to the Palacio Duhau further along Avenida Alvear.

The hotel's most repeated story dates from 1996, when Madonna lived in the mansion while shooting Alan Parker's Evita in the city. Rock bands on South American tours have treated the mansion suites as their base ever since.

Architecture and design

La Mansión, as the hotel calls the older house, has the full apparatus of the period: a marble staircase, panelled salons, a winter garden and a terrace over the lawn. The tower is a plain modern building with the rooms stacked over a lobby that opens to the garden. Between them lies the pool, under palms and a wall of jacaranda, which is the one place in central Buenos Aires where a guest can swim outdoors in sight of a Belle Époque façade. The whole hotel was renovated in the early 2010s, when the restaurant and bar were rebuilt and the rooms redone.

Rooms and suites

There are 165 rooms and suites in all. The great majority are in the tower, with views over Recoleta or the river side of the city. Seven suites are in the mansion, with high ceilings, period mouldings and in some cases the original parquet; the largest occupies most of a floor and has its own terrace. Guests of the mansion share a private entrance and the salons.

Dining

Elena, on the ground floor of the tower, is a steak restaurant built around a dry-ageing room and a charcuterie counter, and it is one of the restaurants of the city rather than merely of the hotel. Pony Line, the bar beside it, is named for the polo stables and mixes the drinks that made it a fixture of Buenos Aires nightlife after its opening in 2012. Nuestro Secreto, in the garden, is an outdoor grill serving the Argentine asado at long tables under the trees, open to hotel guests and the public.

Wellness

The spa is in the tower, with treatment rooms, a sauna and a steam room, and a fitness centre beside it. The outdoor pool in the garden is heated.

Weddings and events

The mansion is the venue for weddings, with its salons, the winter garden and the terrace over the lawn, and the garden takes receptions. The tower holds the ballroom and a set of meeting rooms used by the banks and law firms of the neighbourhood. Capacities are not given here.

Location

Recoleta puts the hotel a few minutes' walk from the Recoleta cemetery, the Alvear Palace Hotel and the shops of Avenida Alvear, and a block from Avenida 9 de Julio. The Teatro Colón is ten minutes on foot. Jorge Newbery airport, for domestic flights, is about 20 minutes away; Ezeiza international airport is roughly 50 minutes by road. It is the luxury hotel in Buenos Aires that visiting bands and heads of state choose most often.