Landmark hotels

Las torres in Playamar were subject of lengthy legal battles with residents wanting the 'eyesores' demolished. As the picture (taken July 2012) shows, they appear exactly as when I moved there with my family in 1975ish.

It is impossible to understand the town’s modern history without knowing about its hotels and apartment buildings.

These serve as physical markers around to which the various stages of Torremolinos’ past are tied.

Most of the landmark hotels and apartment buildings which stand today were built before the 1980s.

Playamar, Bajondillo, with la roca and carihuela beyond.

Think of the coastline of Torremolinos from Benalmadena to the Rock which cuts the coastline in two and it is still hard to ignore the impressive Aloha Puerto Sol and Sol Timor next to it; the luxury Gran Hotel Nautilus (1963); the singular Pez Espada (1959)  with its ugly blueish-white neighbours the Pez Espada Residential Complex.

Next to this eyesore remains the Tropicana Hotel (1961) and its legendary beach club, the latter no longer any different to the other chiringuitos.

In the land where the 1950s place-to-be was the Club El Remo was once located, the El Remo Apartment building has stood since 1966 overlooking the square by the same name.

I walked into the gardens of this building hoping to find out about the famous Club, and was saddened to see that the 20 o 30 people sat around the pool were probably 30 plus years older than me. They looked at me as if a visitor from another planet. I felt as if I was visiting a relative at an old people’s home.

And who could ignore the ageing yellowness of the Eurosol complex built in 1963 straddling the main road either side of the Calle Pez Espada. I lived in Eurosol’s building 109 (there are a dozen or so buildings despite the ambitious numeration) from around 1983 to 1987.

Pez Espada opened in 1959.

Speaking to the gardener recently I discovered the Eurosol owners’ association had later sold the only swimming pool, grounds and bar belonging to the community to a foreigner. He could not remember the motive for the purchase nor the justification for selling it “Who sells the community pool?” asked the gardener, rhetorically.

This where I would spend much of my summers, playing with friends, throwing stones to the bottom of the pool which we would race to pick up.

I remember watching my father in his minute Speedo trunks attempting to use the diving board, inevitably performing an ungraceful belly flop instead.

The diving board remains, and once again stones lay at the bottom, but for many years now the pool area has remained closed, unused, and unloved, and  young boys will no longer dive in to remove those stones.

A car tire sits at the bottom of the empty pool surrounded by debris, as the overgrown gardens that surround it hide the tragic embarrassment which it has become.

The unattractive but imposing Aloha 6 (1969) or Aloha 7 buildings still stand tall above La Carihuela, near the Hotel Carihuela Palace (1960) by the main road in Montemar where the 70s disco scene had once exploded.

Perched on ‘the rock’ is the rotting, but still dramatic-looking Hotel Castillo de Santa Clara (1975), which opened next to the earlier apartment building La Roca (1942). In the town centre are the once impressive La Nogalera apartment buildings (1966) now in desperate need for some tlc.

La Nogalera circa 1969

For years, one of the premier hotels in the town centre was the 4-star Hotel Cervantes, built in 1973 next to Calle San Miguel.

Up from calle San Miguel, the largely ignored first high rise buildings for locals, the distinctive grey Las Tres Torres (the three towers) were inaugurated on the Avenida Manantiales in December 1969.

On the other side of the rock, in the Bajondillo, still stands the Melia Costa del Sol (1976), but the unequivocal sight as one looks east toward Malaga City are the Playamar Towers which were built in the early 60s and were involved in fierce legal battles to stop their demolition until the 70s.

The towers seem to have stood the test of time and have retained much of their appeal to the locals who still see them as an up-market complex.

A couple of kilometres from Playamar, up by the main road to Malaga are the Apartamentos La Colina which were built in February 1962.

Others have been demolished, are about to or have closed. 

More of this to follow...

Anything not right or want to add something? Post a comment or email me 

YouTube Video about the Pez Espada and the famous Frank Sinatra incident



INAUGURATION DATES:

Hotel Lloyd in Montemar opened in 1964 and has been closed for 2 years. A 'to rent' sign now hangs on its entrance

1934 – Carlota Alessandri converts her cortijo de Cucazorra into the Parador de Montemar.
1942 – Enrique Bolín Bidwell opens the no frills Hotel La Roca.
1952 - Miami.
1954 - Casablanca.
1956 - La Marina.
1955 – Los Nidos.
1957 - De France, Bristol.
1958 - Las Mercedes, Copenhaguen, El Pinar, Tarik (before hotel Don Martín), Los Arcos.
1959 - Costa del Sol, Pez Espada, El Tiburón.
1960 – Tropicana, France, Carihuela Palace, Santa Mónica, Edén, Casa Arkadia, Playa Montemar, Los Geranios del Pinar, Guadalupe, Loreto.
1961 – Tritón, Saint-Tropez, Los Nidos.
1962 – Tres Carabelas (later Meliá Torremolinos), Plata, Fragata, Aparta Luna, Sol y Sol, Don Pedro, Guillot.
1963 – Jorge V, El Panorama, Torremora, Plata, Casablanca, Nautilus, Mar y Sol, El Pozo, Escandinavia, Sola, Parador Nacional del Golf, El Cortijuelo.
1964 – Al Andalus, Tarik, Torremora, Aloha Montemar, Lloyd, San Miguel, Europa, Marloy, Los Riscos.
1965 - Blasón, Don Juan, Piscis, Colombo, Domingo, Pizarro, Tres Coronas, Montesol.
1966 – Azor, Los Jazmines, Beatriz.
1967 – Pramelinos, Mayte, Stella Polaris, Las Palomas, Torre de la Roca, Salamanca, Villa Ana.
1968 – Altavista, La Caracola, Las Palomas, Montemar, Victoria.
1969 - Amaragua, San Antonio, Samba, Cabello.
1970 – Cervantes, Isabel, Pontinental, Coral, El Colegial.
1971 – Castillo de Santa Clara, Lago Rojo, Flamingo, Flor Blanco, Minerva, Flores.
1972 - Tres Torres.
1973 – Las Estrellas, La Palmera

list courtesy of TorremolinosChic.com