Amargura 62, a house with a story
Amargura 62 is a house of colonial architecture in Old Havana, with a courtyard at its center and the apartments around it. It's not a hotel: there's no reception desk and no carpeted corridors. There's a blue door, a courtyard full of plants and someone from the house waiting for you.
How we brought it back
When we arrived, the house was in ruins.
We've been restoring it for eleven years, room by room, with the help of artists from Havana, and always with the same idea: to keep what was original and add only what suited it.
That's why every apartment is different. In one, the wall opens in cracks that show the brick and draw the branches of a tree. In another, the headboard is a door painted with sky and clouds. In another, the bathroom is a little brick house with a wooden roof. What they share is the house itself: the patterned cement tiles of the *mosaico hidráulico* floors, the exposed brick, the blue doors and shutters, and the stained-glass fanlights over the doors, the *medios puntos*.
The courtyard and the roof terrace
The courtyard
The courtyard is the center of everything: palm trees, plants in clay pots, a small fountain and wrought-iron tables under an umbrella. It's where breakfast is served and where, without looking for it, you end up meeting travelers from other parts of the world.
The roof terrace
A wrought-iron staircase leads up to the roof terrace: rocking chairs painted in bright colors, a table with a chessboard and the rooftops of Old Havana all around. There's also a large wooden table with chairs, among palm trees and potted plants, and in the background a dome and towers of the old city. The best time is the end of the afternoon.
Services
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Breakfast
Fruit, eggs, bread and juice in the courtyard, prepared every morning with fresh local ingredients.
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Transfers
We arrange your airport transfer and your trips around Cuba, with a driver we trust.
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Activities
Guided tours, massages and whatever you'd like to discover: we help you organize it.
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At the house
Laundry, minibar and SIM card.
You can order them from the Guest Portal.
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Who looks after it
We're Eugenio and Patricia. We like traveling, art, photography and, above all, restoring houses. This is the one that has taught us the most.
Eduardo is the face of the house: he welcomes you, helps you with a taxi, a currency exchange or a recommendation, and makes sure everything runs smoothly. Breakfast is prepared every morning in the courtyard, as it has been since the beginning. And the neighbors, who have lived here all their lives, look after the plants and keep the house alive. When you arrive, they all make sure you feel at home; when you leave, they hope you'll come back.
They're Amargura 62 too.
The neighborhood
Amargura Street is pedestrian and quiet, although it's right in the historic center, close to the four squares of Old Havana, the part of the city declared a World Heritage Site. From the door, Plaza de San Francisco is a one-minute walk; Plaza Vieja, three; Plaza de Armas, seven; and Plaza de la Catedral, nine. Very close by is also the Office of the City Historian, which has restored a good part of these streets.
Everything is done on foot: cafés, galleries, museums, music in the street. And when you come back, the house is quiet.
The street takes its name from the Stations of the Cross procession that passed along it during Lent, like Jerusalem's Via Dolorosa, known in Spanish as the *calle de la Amargura*. There was a stone cross at each station, and on the corner with Mercaderes, at the end of our own block, one is still preserved: the Cruz Verde (Green Cross), which for a time gave the street its name.
The window in our logo
Our logo is the *medio punto* of our own house: the fan-shaped stained-glass window that crowns the doors of Old Havana and that we have above ours. Seven wedges of glass grow from a small center and alternate, clear and color, as in our windows. At night, the same window lights up in amber: the house is still awake and waiting for you.
It's the window you'll see above your door.
