I HAD seen Rizal Park Hotel somewhere, but I can’t quite remember where. If I may hazard a guess, it might be in a picture-perfect postcard lost in a pile of its kind, gathering a veneer of permanent dust.
Because, at the outset, the hotel is an item from another time, something that gives you an instant affinity with the place and merits the same whimsical regard as when you look at a starry night sky and you suddenly have a feeling you were once there.
Essentially, the hotel in question wedged in a nook right smack at kilometer zero is, if you will, a revival of the phantom-old Army and Navy Club that once became a derelict of the past.
In 1911 the Army and Navy Club (built as early as 1898) was established as part of Daniel Burnham’s City Beautiful Movement. Designed by American architect William Parsons, who, what with the dominant use of arches, was also behind the design of the august city’s iconic historical landmarks, the club was an exclusive happening place in the early-1900s of American military officers and A-list of old who danced away twisted on the floor in nightgowns until the wee hours.
With a reputation as among the best of its type in the world, the structure having weathered 30 years of abandon to this day old patrons would walk down the august halls savoring every part of the American social club with hints of nostalgic recall: a happy dance, a tête-à-tête, a first kiss on the poolside from a G.I. named Patterson.
Like most national-heritage structures, the plan was to restore, retrofit and rehabilitate the architectural monument to bring back the spirit of the place and recapture its old charm.
Because what is now aptly named Rizal Park Hotel plays a cultural role, one that celebrates history and a beacon at the center of a world heritage city, whose track on progress is hinged on cultural tourism and revitalizing old downtowns.
The restoration and redevelopment of the club into a boutique hotel put into principal consideration the building’s historical significance, preserving its original beams and columns by retrofitting them, while the floor slabs were reinforced concrete.
The original grand staircase (which was once trodden by icons with commensurate historical significance, think Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Adm. George Dewey, Leonard Wood) punctuate the same octagonal lobby, and the full-glass windows pronounced by extruded window ornaments are in place, instead of the original capiz. The club’s balcony railings were precast; Doric columns retained; the grand porte cochere defining the familiar façade of the stately white structure beckons the way it did in the days of yore.
The boutique hotel tinged in light and earthy colors; the floors paved with tiles instead of carpets, Rizal Park Hotel has 76 guest rooms (standard room, deluxe room, junior suite, premier suite, premier suite with ante room, army navy club suite), which, as the hotel general manager Paolo Sumera puts it, are “elegant and as is back in the day, sans the gloomy feel to it”
As Army Navy was the place to be for a gourmand food trip, an al-fresco courtyard decked with old, old photos of officers dining in their uniforms has a merry mix of East and the West, Filipino and American, steaks, bagnet, thermidor, a pie stuffed with tender slabs of chicken (no matter that a fine-dining Chinese restaurant, as well as a hotel bakery and deli, are also in the works).
Like the old Army Navy Club, the hotel will have an infinity pool or two that will be situated knit next to a gym in the building’s annex. This, while a sky bar and a coffee bar will be in place of what used to be called the drunk’s row, a long bunk commandeered by officers who were at it until daylight, spinning tall tales and musings about a history waiting to happen.