El Castillo Hotel is a building with medieval architecture that was built in 1870 and is located in Valle Hermoso (Córdoba), Argentina. Throughout its life under the management of different owners, it has been, in chronological order, a family mansion, a time period hotel, a union summer camp, and a five-star hotel.
| El Castillo Hotel Fabrega Organizational Center | |
|---|---|
| Location | Valle Hermoso, Province of Córdoba, Argentina |
| Architect | F. Rosas (expansion 1930), Ing. Edgardo R. Fábrega (restoration 2007) |
| Owner | Fabrega Family |
| Total floor area | 7,000 m2 (75,000 sq ft) |
| Website | www.elcastillohotel.com.ar |
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The castle was built as the primary farmhouse of the “Las Playas” estancia around 1870, in the Valle Hermoso Valle Hermoso, Córdoba, town Provincia de Córdoba, Argentine Republic. In 1930, the farmhouse passed to the hands of Don José Ferrarini, an Italian immigrant, who expanded it while conserving its medieval Florentine style, and transformed it into the luxurious "Hotel Monte Olivo", beautified with floors of granite and parquet, cedar and cinchona cabinetry, Provence furniture, porcelain and silver tableware, bronze bathroom fittings, and wrought iron light fixtures. A few years after its opening, the hotel closed its doors and the building was unused for more than thirty years.
From 1970 to 2000, the property was used as a summer camp for the metal workers union (Unión Obrera Metalúrgica), and was allotted to student and senior tourism operators. The last years of this phase, EL CASTILLO remained impossible to use due to the deterioration suffered by neglect, lack of maintenance and repeated looting. In 2002, the castle regained its historical value thanks to a four-year restoration, carried out entirely by local workers and craftsmen led by an Argentine family. Since 2006, under the name of “El Castillo Hotel Fábrega Organizational Center” it operates as a hotel specialized in family tourism, corporate events and training programs.
El Castillo has 7000 square meters and four hectares of grounds. In the different modules, the building combines materials such as stone, brick, fine plaster, solid wood, and wrought iron. The windows and doors are straight lines, but are marked with stone arches. The upper finishing has a jagged shape with battlements, and in every angle there are watchtowers. The roofs have flat terraces and inclined surfaces with Spanish tiles. It has 45 rooms of up to 90 square meters. The common areas offer a restaurant, a wine cellar, a bar, a lounge, a reading hall, a home-theater, a sculpture studio, a photography studio, a rehearsal room for musicians, a bowling and playroom, a gym and a spa with a heated pool, a jacuzzi, a sauna and a relaxing area. On its grounds, there are pools, and tennis, volleyball and soccer fields.[1] The 7-meter-high, 600-sq-meter Feudal Meeting Room, built in 2009, has a technical floor with moving plates wrapped on a natural flax-derived material, an underneath climatisation system that recirculates cold/hot water from the outdoor swimming pools, double-glass doors, screens placed above all windows for cenital projection of natural light, and a grounding electrical system that links itself with the steel of the whole room structure.[2]
Under the name of El Castillo Hotel Fábrega Organizational Center, the company develops and delivers educational programs for organizations (businesses, foundations, universities, families). The programs combine the science of its theoretical seminars with the art of integrative activities aimed at the development of phenomena and crucial human processes within an organization. The main topics are: power and leadership, conflict and negotiation, team performance, information processing, change management, motivation and satisfaction, decision-making, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. Each organization is accommodated in El Castillo with exclusive use of all facilities and services. Family programs are offered during two months a year that coincide with school vacation time.[3]
El Castillo proposes respecting the mountain environment and the building as an architectural gem. Its restoration was carried out while leaving intact the structure and incorporating cutting-edge technology in an ecological environment. El Castillo has a multifunctional work team, composed of individuals exclusively from the region who are the same people that performed the restoration of the building. In the sleeping area, there are no televisions or minibars, and telephones are used only for internal communication. Among other ecotouristic actions, El Castillo presents: Just In Time supply system, donation of abandoned furniture to local schools; solar powered lighting, wireless 802.11n and symmetrical connection to Internet, 13 SEER independent climate control with natural gas, on-site mineral water spring, two-tier organization, seasonal athletic activities for personnel, permanent educational programs on home economics, notions of law, group dynamics, yoga and sculpting and musical arts, majority of permanent personnel; totality of local personnel, absence of experience or formal education prerequisites to fill jobs, active support for academic work to students of all levels who request it.[4]
On March 22, 2010, El Castillo was officially recognized as a five-star hotel by the Córdoba Tourism Agency.[5] It is the first 5 star hotel in the Sierras of Córdoba and the only in the province outside of the capital.[6] In Argentina the higher range hotels (4 or 5 stars) are in the upper 8% of all hotels and 50% are concentrated in the city and province of Buenos Aires, according to the Hotel Occupancy Survey (Encuesta de Ocupación Hotelera, EOH) that was conducted in 2007, which is the latest official statistic available.[7]
El Castillo is the first South American hotel that has been analyzed by the international academic community. The case study,[8] written by Emeritus Professor Jonathan Story and certified by the INSEAD and RPI Universities, describes how it was possible to create a product that was previously non-existent, that combines family tourism and business training, all while obtaining record numbers of growth and client satisfaction. The analysis shows special emphasis on the high risk that the entrepreneurial family had to overcome, with obstacles such as the profound economic crisis (the December 2001 Crisis in Argentina), lack of credit, remote vendors, expensive technology, changing context, devalued location, and laws contrary to ecotourism. The case is distributed by ECCH, the world's largest organization dedicated to promoting and providing case studies for management development and educational programs in general. The ECCH has a list of approximately 60,000 studies, of which the Argentine cases represent less than 0.1%.[9] El Castillo has been invited by various universities to present their vision and commitment as a responsible social actor. Since 2009, El Castillo has participated as a guest speaker at the National Universities of the Northeast (UNNE), Quilmes (UNQ), the Universities of Buenos Aires (UBA), Palermo (UP Graduate Business School, Católica de Córdoba (ICDA), UADE Business School, Austral (IAE Business School), Rutgers Business School, Católica de Salta (UCASAL), the Amartya Fair Trade Organization, and the Argentine Institute of Corporate Social Responsibility (IARSE). In 2010, its founders were invited to join the “Fordham Consortium on the Purpose of Business”, an initiative of Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York.