Hotel Santo Mauro

Calle de Zurbano runs north through Chamberí, a street of embassies and 19th-century palacetes, and at number 36 a pair of gates opens onto the garden of the Hotel Santo Mauro in Madrid. Mariano Fernández de Henestrosa, first Duke of Santo Mauro, built the palace in 1894 as his family's town residence, in the French taste that the Madrid aristocracy of the Restoration preferred to anything Spanish.

History

The dukedom of Santo Mauro was created in 1890, and the palace followed four years later, with a garden on the street side that was itself a statement in a city where most palaces turned their backs on the pavement. The duke held senior office at court under Queen Victoria Eugenia, and the house received the royal family and the diplomatic corps. The family kept it into the 20th century. It became a hotel in 1991, and in the years that followed it was the flagship of Antonio Catalán's AC Hotels, a house of a few dozen rooms that offered a garden instead of a lobby, and later carried the Autograph Collection badge within Marriott. Cristiano Ronaldo lived at the Santo Mauro for his first months in the city after joining Real Madrid in 2009. The hotel closed in 2019 for a complete renovation by the Madrid decorator and antiques dealer Lorenzo Castillo and reopened in late 2020 within Marriott's Luxury Collection, keeping its name.

Architecture and design

The palace is a three-storey block of the 1890s with a mansard roof, tall French windows and a railed garden with mature trees. Castillo's renovation restored the main rooms, the panelled library, the salons and the painted ceilings, and furnished them with antiques and 20th-century pieces chosen one by one rather than drawn from hotel stock. Bedrooms occupy the palace and a second building across the garden. The hotel has a heated indoor pool and a gym.

Rooms and suites

There are 49 rooms and suites, which makes the Santo Mauro one of the smallest of the luxury hotels in Madrid. Each is furnished differently. The suites in the palace itself have the high ceilings and tall windows of the original reception rooms; those in the garden building face the trees and are the quieter choice.

Dining

La Biblioteca de Santo Mauro, the restaurant, occupies the duke's library, with the original bookcases still lining the walls. The garden terrace serves lunch and dinner outdoors for much of the year, and there is a bar in the palace.

Weddings and events

The Santo Mauro has long been used for weddings and private dinners in Madrid, with ceremonies in the garden and receptions in the salons of the palace. The library, the salons and the garden can be reserved together, which suits a wedding of modest size rather than a large banquet. The garden is the asset that other palace hotels in the city lack: ceremonies are held under the trees in spring and autumn with the façade as backdrop, and dinners for a few dozen guests fit the salons. Meetings use the same salons.

Location

Chamberí is residential, 10 minutes on foot from the Paseo de la Castellana and the shops of Calle de Serrano. Calle de Zurbano and the parallel Calle de Fortuny hold several embassies, which keeps the streets quiet at night. The Museo Sorolla, the painter's house and garden, is two streets away on Paseo del General Martínez Campos. Rubén Darío is the closest metro station. Atocha station is about 15 minutes by taxi, and Madrid-Barajas airport around 25 minutes.