Cool and Quirky, Not Tame and Predictable Havana Riverwalk Inn
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Nobody will ever accuse San Antonio’s Havana Riverwalk Inn of being a dull, corporate cookie cutter hotel. Not on this earth anyway. The Havana is a hotel for self-confident thinking people. The kind of folks who can appreciate a place where every room in the hotel exudes its own personality and where the personal service is as warm as the mojitos in the bar are icy cold and refreshing.
The Havana won’t be for everyone though. It’s a small hotel (just 28 rooms on 3 floors) with personal service. It’s also a historical property — built in 1914 — so you have to put up with old-fashioned looking things, like beautifully ornate ceilingwork, intricate woodwork throughout the public spaces, heavy wood shutters, thick glass, genuine brick, and handlaid custom tilework including the word “HAVANA” set into the tile of the hotel’s stunning entryway. The place exudes substance.
The Havana is definitely not a family-appropriate hotel — in fact, they have a “no kids” policy. It’s good for couples looking for unique charm. It’s also good for single travelers with very discriminating taste.
No real amenities though. No fitness center. No pool. No gift shop. They have an awesome small restuarant and bar, called Club Cohiba, that’s got a a great art deco interior and a long porch outside overlooking San Antonio’s Riverwalk. They do killer Cuban food, and though their bartender claims its the martinis that draw people to the bar, they do a mean mojito too (and a mojito sure does wash down a plate of ropa vieja and moros y cristianos better than a martini would). Best of all: great music (and as Cuban as the food).
The rooms are just as killer as the Club. Every room is totally unique, decorated with excitingly innovative quirks. The whole hotel is furnished in antiques. Not the fake antiques you find in some corporate hotels, but the real McCoy, right down to a faint musky funk of old must. Awesome! My room has a king size canopy bed with rough handwoven muslim linens and old hats and sepia toned photos in old frames hanging on the walls. Though the room appears like something right out of 1920, it’s actually quite modern with updated bathroom fixtures and very modern cable TV (albeit hidden in an antique armoire). The room is as beautiful as the rest of the hotel, with deep, dark hardwood floors and gilt edged wallpapers and exposed brick walls.
The location is a few blocks away from the busy section of Riverwalk that draws the big crowds on weekend evenings. Located on Navarro, near St. Marys, it’s on a quiet branch of the Riverwalk that doesn’t get much traffic and that doesn’t have all the shops and cafes and bars along it. It’s good for a quiet morning walk, though I don’t really feel comfortable walking this section of the Riverwalk late at night.
In a city full of corporate hotels catering to weekend partiers and weekday conventioneers, it’s refreshing to find a hotel of such class and distinction. The Havana won’t be for everybody, but for that rare breed of rugged individual who actually knows why genuine quality isn’t something that’s packaged and branded, it is a gem worth seeking out.
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