Former Quisisana Hotel (Escuelas Pías)

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1904 · Authors: Mariano Estanga

This building arose at the beginning of the 20th century as a hotel facility. Santa Cruz de Tenerife lacked a luxury hotel to accommodate the incipient tourism arriving in the city in those years, which demanded all the comforts of modern convenience. 

A prosperous British businessman and industrialist, Enrique Wolfson, a pioneer in tomato exportation, decided to address this; for this he used a large rustic estate bordering the "Paseo de los Coches" (now the Rambla) whose entrance was located at the junction of this avenue with Viera y Clavijo street.

The project for the new hotel was entrusted to the architect Mariano Estanga, who was commissioned to create a building with forms reminiscent of British castles. By May 1903 the masonry work was quite advanced and the interior layout had been completed, with the hotel inaugurated on 5 December 1904.

Estanga followed the tastes of Victorian England, imitating the achievements of past styles, mixing such disparate solutions as towers from Italian communal palaces and French fortifications, all combined with a persistent Tudor style. The result was a building of enormous monumental quality.

The establishment featured rich furniture imported from England, as well as all the technical comforts of the moment: electrical installation, lift and a rudimentary telephone system, of which Wolfson had been a pioneer in Tenerife.

The entire surrounding hill was designed as a huge and splendid garden (now disappeared) stretching from the Rambla to the building itself.

The hotel was a complete success, given its elevated location dominating the city with spectacular views over Santa Cruz bay.

After its closure as a hotel in 1934 and following the end of the Civil War, the building changed use, becoming a religious school, a function it still serves today. In the 1950s a large extension was carried out with the construction of the south wing, achieving a discreet adaptation of the new school spaces to the existing building.

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