Palácio Tangará

Parque Burle Marx is a stretch of Atlantic forest in the south-west of São Paulo, laid out by the landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx and kept as a public park among the towers of Panamby. At its edge, behind a long drive, stands Palácio Tangará, a white palace of a hotel that opened in 2017 on land with a longer story than its age suggests.

History

In the 1940s Francisco Pignatari, the industrialist and playboy known across Brazil as Baby, bought the estate and began building a palace for himself and the Brazilian socialite he was then pursuing. Burle Marx designed the gardens. The house was never finished: Pignatari's fortunes and marriages moved on, and for decades the shell stood in the park, the gardens surviving better than the building. The park became public in 1995. Oetker Collection, the German family-owned group behind Le Bristol in Paris, took on the project to complete a hotel on the site, and Palácio Tangará opened in 2017 as the group's first property in South America. The name comes from the tangará, a small manakin bird of the Atlantic forest.

Architecture and design

The hotel is a new building in the classical manner, with white façades, columns, a porte-cochère and long terraces facing the forest. The Brazilian designer Patricia Anastassiadis handled the interiors, using marble, Brazilian hardwoods, brass and fabrics in the greens of the park. The public rooms open onto the gardens, and the terraces look into the tree canopy rather than at the city, which is invisible from most of the hotel.

Rooms and suites

There are 141 rooms and suites, most with balconies or terraces onto the park. The suites rise to a Presidential Suite with its own terrace and dining room. Rooms are large by city standards, with dressing areas and marble bathrooms, and the lower floors open directly onto the garden.

Dining

Tangará Jean-Georges is the restaurant of Jean-Georges Vongerichten, his first in South America, with a menu that puts Brazilian produce through his French and Asian techniques; it holds a Michelin star in the São Paulo guide. The Burle Bar serves cocktails in the lobby lounge, and the Terraço serves breakfast and lighter meals outside with the forest beyond the balustrade. Afternoon tea is taken in the lounge.

Wellness

The Spa Sisley has treatment rooms with the French house's protocols, a sauna, a steam room and a fitness centre. The hotel has both an indoor pool and an outdoor pool in the garden, the latter surrounded by lawn and the trees of the park. The walking trails of Parque Burle Marx start at the hotel's gate.

Weddings and events

Palácio Tangará is one of the city's main venues for weddings, with a ballroom and a series of smaller salons, gardens for ceremonies and the terraces for receptions. Corporate groups use the same rooms for conferences and launches, and the hotel's location away from the centre suits residential meetings. Capacities for the ballroom and salons are set by the hotel according to the layout chosen.

Location

The hotel stands in Panamby, next to Morumbi, in the south-west of São Paulo. Congonhas airport, for domestic flights, is about 15 kilometres away; Guarulhos international airport is around 40 kilometres and can take over an hour in traffic. The financial districts of Faria Lima and Berrini are 15 to 25 minutes by car. There is no metro station near the park, and guests move by car. For a luxury hotel in São Paulo it is the only one set inside a forest park, which is why it is chosen.