Copacabana Palace Hotel Renovation

Brazil Travel & Tourism News

RIO DE JANEIRO – The most famous hotel in Rio de Janeiro, the Copacabana Palace, will be renovated this year and will be selling historic items. The second major renovation since the iconic hotel opened in 1923, will see bedside tables, dressers, sofas and lamps offered for sale to the general public.

Copacabana Palace Hotel Renovation

Sixty rooms and ninety bathrooms in the main building will be completely refurbished. The last major remodeling occurred in late 1994.

Originally, the remodeling was to commence in May, but it was postponed until the end of June so that the hotel could accommodate delegations arriving in the city for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio +20, which runs from 13 to 22 June, 2012.

The hotel owners will invest R$30 million reals ($16 million USD) in the renovation. The lobby, considered small by today’s standards, will be expanded by 60%. Disabled access throughout the building will be brought up to modern standards.

The façade will be extended to accommodate the passage of two vehicles at a time – it currently only fits one.

The hotel will not be closed for renovations. The buildings adjoining the main building, housing two restaurants and the pool will remain open. There are also many other great hotels to stay at nearby while it is closed. Visit Expedia.com.br to see some of these options.

”It is a hotel dating to the 1920s, so it has many stairs, which hinder the movement of wheelchairs, for example,” the hotel’s general manager, Andrea Natal, told Folha. “Our idea is to modernize it without ruining its classic style,” she said.

In 2005, the annex building of the Copa, as the hotel is called by its regulars, was renovated. Its 96 rooms were completely redone.

At that time, 589 items of furniture were sold at an auction held in the auditorium of the hotel, where stars such as Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner and Clark Gable have stayed. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Black Eyed Peas are but a few of the other luminaries who have all stayed in the hotel.

The furniture is mostly solid wood – mahogany or rosewood – in English Style. The hotel has not yet announced how the items will be sold – whether by auction or in a kind of bazaar.

At the 2005 sale, Claudia Fialho, director of Public Relations for the hotel told Folha, many bidders were from Sao Paulo. “Many others were from the Guinle family, the former owners,” she said. The Copacabana Palace belongs to the English firm Orient Express, which has 50 luxury hotels in 25 countries.