Brothers Sosthenes and Hernand Behn saw an opportunity in San Juan’s growing tourist trade in the early 1900s and went looking for investors to back a luxury beachfront hotel. Frederick William Vanderbilt, of the storied New York dynasty, agreed to finance the project and took an unusually hands-on role, personally selecting the architectural firm Warren and Wetmore, the same firm behind Grand Central Terminal, and directing them toward a Spanish Colonial Revival design meant to honor San Juan’s Hispanic roots.
The hotel opened October 16, 1919, and quickly became the social center of the island, hosting guests from Errol Flynn to Franklin Roosevelt. It closed in the 1990s and sat empty for seven years amid a dispute with San Juan’s mayor before a ten-year, roughly $270 million restoration reopened it in phases starting in 2012, rebuilding the original 1919 wing to match its historic appearance.