Sofitel Montevideo Casino Carrasco & Spa

Carlos Gardel performed in the Hotel Casino Carrasco in the years when the white palace on the Rambla República de México was the social centre of Montevideo's beach suburb. The Sofitel Montevideo Casino Carrasco & Spa is that building, inaugurated in 1921 and designed by the French architects Jacques Dunant and Gaston Mallet as the anchor of Carrasco, a garden suburb laid out for the summers of the Uruguayan elite at the mouth of the Río de la Plata.

History

The hotel and its casino opened together in March 1921 and for half a century drew Argentine and Brazilian visitors across the river as much as Montevideans. The state declared the building a Monumento Histórico Nacional in 1975, but the hotel's fortunes declined in the following decades and it closed in 1997. It stood shut for fifteen years, its roofs and plasterwork deteriorating, while the city debated what to do with it. A concession awarded in 2009 to the Carrasco Nobile consortium financed a full restoration, and the hotel reopened in March 2013 under Accor's Sofitel brand, with the casino returned to the ground floor.

Architecture and design

Dunant and Mallet gave the building the manners of a French seaside casino: a symmetrical façade with a central dome, mansard roofs, tall arched windows on the river side and a grand double staircase inside. The restoration kept the original marble floors, stained glass, mouldings and ironwork, and rebuilt the ballrooms to their 1921 proportions. The hotel is the most photographed building on the Rambla and the one that Carrasco's residents use as their landmark.

Rooms and suites

Rooms occupy the upper floors and face either the river or the neighbourhood's gardens. High ceilings and tall windows come from the original building; bathrooms, lighting and bedding are the Sofitel standard installed in 2013. The river-facing rooms look across the Rambla to a beach and the brown water of the Plata, which is wide enough here to pass for sea.

Dining

Restaurant 1921 takes its name from the hotel's inauguration year and serves Uruguayan beef and river fish with French technique in the former dining hall. The bar, under the Sofitel name, works the lobby and terrace in the evenings. The hotel also holds a certification as Uruguay's first plastic-free hotel, which shows in the restaurant's service.

Wellness

The spa occupies part of the lower floors with an indoor heated pool, treatment rooms and a fitness centre. The casino, operating under the hotel's concession, fills the ground floor with tables and machines and keeps the building busy after the restaurant closes.

Weddings and events

The hotel has six event rooms. The restored ballrooms, with their original plasterwork and river views, are used for Carrasco's weddings and for corporate dinners, and the smaller salons for board meetings and seminars. The building's history makes it the first choice for official receptions in the suburb.

Location

Carrasco lies about 15 kilometres east of Montevideo's centre and ten minutes by car from Carrasco International Airport, which makes this the one luxury hotel in Montevideo that is closer to the airport than to the Old Town. The Rambla runs in front of the door, with the beach across the road and the suburb's low houses and plane trees behind. Carrasco's own cafés and the shops of Avenida Arocena lie a few blocks inland, and the Rambla's promenade runs the whole way west into the city.