The location of this Pestana Collection hotel in Madrid is the envy of many international hotel groups. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Plaza Mayor.
The building housing the Pestana Plaza Mayor hotel in Madrid is four centuries old, and sometimes it felt like Pestana had waited almost as long to do business in the Spanish capital. Part of the prestigious Pestana Collection, the hotel opened in 2019, but not before the Group’s head of development, José Roquette, spent three long years visiting Madrid to meet with banks, real estate agents, consultants, and bankrupt hotel chains. All in all, over 100 projects were analysed, but to no avail.
Things began to change when a Spanish lawyer informed Roquette that a public tender for a hotel in the Plaza Mayor was about to be announced, the first of its kind in the capital’s emblematic square. It seemed a long shot for the Portuguese group, who knew they were competing against the most powerful players in the Spanish hotel business.
The all-important phone call eventually came from the same lawyer who got the ball rolling: they had won the tender. José Roquette thought it was a prank. Dionisio Pestana didn’t believe it at first either. Four years of building work later, one of Madrid’s most magnificent hotels is now a Pestana. From the basement (featuring an indoor pool with brick arched ceilings) to the terrace (where the pool overlooks Madrid’s domes), there can only be one conclusion: it was well worth the wait.
Pestana Plaza Mayor Madrid
Stay in a century-old building in Madrid’s emblematic and central square.
