It must have seemed like a good idea at the time....

This is a picture of the old Savaroni hotel just off the beach. I keep wanting to call it the Savoy, but no, it is the Savaroni. Poor little Savaroni. Although it is directly on Avenida Boa Viagem, which runs the length of the beach, all of its rooms look directly into the living and dining rooms of its bigger and brighter neighbours. Clearly it was built back in the day when it was the only highrise on the beach and was surrounded by family homes as opposed to highrise apartment buildings. With that kind of set-up, everyone would have had a terrific view looking either up or down the sand and out into the ocean. Although it must have been a bit of an odd site towering above everyone else.

But these days are long gone. There are still a few family homes -- estates really -- left on the beach, but they are a dying breed. The ones that remain appear dwarfed and tenuously holding on to what once must have been a spacious plot on a leafy and sophisticated beach avenue. Apparently these homeowners do not sell their land to developers. Rather, they give the land to the developers in exchange for ownership of three floors in the to-be-constructed highrise. The family can then decide whether they want to inhabit, rent, or sell their new "homes".



So what about the Savaroni? Well, I think that the prices just kept getting lower and lower, until finally it really didn't make sense to continue running a hotel on the beach, which didn't actually face the beach. The demolition crews are now hard at work every morning and I wait patiently [not really, I wish they would hurry up and get the dust-creating part over with] to see what kind of phoenix will rise from the rubble. In the meantime, I lament the days of leafy avenues and wonder how long the rest of the home-owners will be able to hold out.