The Alhambra of the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid that the pickled took ahead

Of what was the Palace of Anglada, there is only a couple of huge trees at the door of what is now one of the most luxurious hotels in Madrid.In the Paseo de la Castellana, the building of the House of Anglada was projected by the architect Emilio Rodríguez Ayuso -author among other works of the Aguirre schools -, and erected in the 1870s. A palace, like so many others of the Castilianthat fell in the 70s of the last century, under the pick of developmentalism.

The palace was ordered by the businessman and politician Juan Anglada.He gave rise to the Palace of Anglada, he started.A journey that began with the buying of a plot on the banks of the little stream of the Castilian Fuente.A place that had passed, in a few years, of being the outskirts of the city to be part of the widening designed by the architect Carlos María de Castro.This plot was initially bought by the Marquis of Salamanca and, after several non -payment and hands changes, ended up in the possession of the Mortgage Bank, which was the one who sold it to Juan de Anglada.

The chronicles of that moment that, both for the exterior and for the interior, the best materials, the granite, the novelda stone, brick and iron were used.In addition to the palace itself, in the corners of the plot various pavilions or auxiliary buildings (garages, blocks, booths for the guards, gym, etc.) were built.

The Anglada Palace was raised around a large closed patio, in the Arab that was then fashionable.Its quality was so high and the plaster imitating the forms of the Alhambra of Granada so perfect, that impressed visitors.Around him the different dependencies, bedrooms, dining room, offices, cabinets, dressers ... In addition, the best painters and sculptors participated in the interior decoration.In the attic were the rooms for the numerous servitude that these types of characters used to have and that really needed the care of such dimensions, and so expensive.

Anyway, maybe everything too expensive.In addition, for what it seems, his wife's inheritance, instead of promoting Juan de Anglada in his businesYear 1890 It is known that puts the palace for sale without having finished decorating and living.

By 1895, when Juan de Anglada dies, the palace is already owned by the Marqués de Oliva, after passing through the Mortgage Bank.It is during this year when several artistic exhibitions are held at the Palace, an event that was used by the public to visit the famous palace.

The Marquis de Oliva dies a few years later and his heirs sell the building to the Marquis de Genal, Enrique Crooke and Larios, who will give him his last name: Palace of Larios.During the first half of the twentieth century the palace will continue to deteriorate and end up being demolished in full development, the result of urban speculation and contempt for the eclectic style with which the palace looked.Most of their noble materials were lost or sold at work.

In its plot, the Villa Magna hotel, the building of the old Sears warehouses, which later became precious galleries and currently El Corte Inglés, and the Torre Serrano building, which was previously the headquarters of the American Hispanic Bank.

From the little left of that lucid palace we can contemplate it at street level in the retirement.It is still curious that, in 1968, the Iron Gate that gave access to the Palace gardens, was transferred to El Retiro Park (Puerta de O’Donnell Menéndez Pelayo corner).