“Native, not Quaint”: The HiltonCaribe Hotel, Puerto Rico and an International Design Empire

• In Event: Material Culture Caucus: Heritage, Empire, and Design: Material Stories of the Caribbean and Central America

Abstract

In December, 1949, the Hilton Caribe hotel opened in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was the
first hotel in a new chain, Hilton Hotels International, which was a global empire of
American-run hotels. It was also a vital piece of Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap. The
building, designed by Puerto Rican architects Toro y Ferer, was strikingly modern and
unlike any other hotel in the world. Guest spaces provided a type of leisure that was
both distinctly Puerto Rican and North American. Rooms were open to the outdoors and
had flexible configurations but also enhanced privacy, mimicking the postwar suburban
home. Throughout the hotel’s public and private spaces, material elements, culinary
arts, textiles and plantings represented a new sensibility about the role of nature in
interior design and placemaking. Contemporary design critic Aline Louchheim noted that
the effect was ‘Native, not quaint.” As Hilton Hotels International opened an expanding
chain of hotels around the world, the company used the template of the Caribe
wherever they went to signal modernity and American comfort. While some scholars
have noted the profound impact that Hilton hotels had on design in the countries where
they appeared, none have yet explored the Puerto-Ricanness of that model. In this
paper I center Puerto Rico in the Caribe’s material culture, looking at ways in which
Hilton hotels adopted and adapted local elements, from climate control to cuisine for the
hotel’s design and which elements it subsequently took overseas. I consider how
Hilton’s elision of Puerto Rico in its design empire reflected broader political and cultural
refusals of the Caribbean in American culture and politics.

Author

• Megan J. Elias, Boston University