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1935-00-00

1935-00-00: (The Hotel Oloffson Opens in Port-au-Prince, a Gothic Revival Gingerbread Mansion That Would Inspire Graham Greene’s Fictional Hotel Trianon and …

Haitian

1935-00-00: (The Hotel Oloffson Opens in Port-au-Prince, a Gothic Revival Gingerbread Mansion That Would Inspire Graham Greene’s Fictional Hotel Trianon and Become the Most Famous Hotel in Haitian History): In 1935, the Hotel Oloffson opened in Port-au-Prince, converted from a nineteenth-century Gothic Revival gingerbread mansion that had once been the home of former President Tirésias Simon Sam. During the occupation, the building had served as a U.S. military hospital. Werner Gustav Oloffson, a Swede, leased the building and transformed it into an inn for foreign tourists. The hotel became the most famous in Haitian history after Graham Greene used it as the inspiration for the fictional Hotel Trianon in his 1966 novel The Comedians, which exposed the brutality of the Duvalier regime to an international audience. The doors of each room bore signs indicating famous former occupants. The Hotel Oloffson survived the 2010 earthquake, one of the few landmarks in Port-au-Prince that endured the catastrophe intact.