Palácio Tangará, the latest masterpiece of Oetker Collection, has opened its doors to its first guests, bringing an exclusive new concept to São Paulo.
Built in the surroundings of the Burle Marx Park, with its gardens designed by Roberto Burle Marx, the hotel offers 141 spacious guestrooms – including 55 suites – all with beautiful views overlooking the park. The interior design was entrusted to Brazilian interior designers William Simonato and Patricia Anastassiadis who have created a truly bespoke design concept for each space.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten will drive the hotel’s dining experiences that includes a signature restaurant, chef’s table, a bar, a wine cellar, a lobby and lounge bar, all with outdoor terraces. Additional facilities comprise 11 function rooms, including a ballroom for up to 360 guests with terraces overlooking the park. The fitness centre and Sisley spa have a private garden and there will be indoor and outdoor swimming pools as well as a kids’ club.
In the late 1940s the extraordinarily wealthy Brazilian, ‘Baby Pignatari’, in one magnificently romantic gesture, built Tangará Ranch for his wife Nelita Alves de Lima. He chose a peaceful place, amid the tropically verdant nature, even then a fresh contrast to the fast growing São Paulo’s centre. As son of the Countess of Matarazzo, Baby had inherited one of Brazil’s largest fortunes so without hesitation he commissioned Brazil’s world leading creative talents: architect, Oscar Niemeyer and Roberto Burle Marx himself, to landscape the gardens. He committed to the Tangará project with all his heartfelt passion. The private residence was an avant-garde concept for this time with very low impact on the surrounding natural landscape. Besides that modern facilities such as a private screen movie theatre, two swimming pools, one being indoor and heated covered by a dome designed and commissioned by Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi.
As the decade turned into the fifties, São Paulo was emerging as a modern metropolis and Brazil was influencing the culture of the world with Bossa Nova’s smooth lilting sounds, abstract art at the first biennale outside Venice, and Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture; meanwhile Baby Pignatari’s marriage died, along with the original plans for Tangará Ranch. The property remained untouched for several years until the 1990s when the residence was demolished. The works on the garden side of the house however were preserved and Burle Marx finished the project, which was incorporated into the formed public park after the approval of the subdivision of the property.
In 1995, the building-owning company built in the park the Tangara Hotel and Spa Palace, a true neoclassical pastiche; as the group itself released it, “a classic architecture and luxurious, rescuing the standards of the finest hotels in the world”. The construction was halted in 2001 due to lack of funding and resulting legal disputes between the original investors. The hotel never saw the light of the day.
Nearly 20 years later Oetker Collection has completed that romantic monument by reviving a beautiful palace, fringed by the tropical greenery of Burle Marx Park.
Celso David do Valle, Managing Director Palácio Tangará adds : “Thanks to the support of our great partnering architects, designers and landscaper, Patricia Anastassiadis, Luiz Bick & William Simonato and Sergio Santana, together with Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten for the gastronomy, Sisley for the spa, Oetker Collection expertise, and our great local team – with their legendary Brazilian warmth and smile – we have put together all the ingredients to make sure our guests will experience unique moments at Palácio Tangará, a true urban oasis. We shall spare no efforts to make their stay a most memorable one and make the Hotel a long term success”.
Rates start from $US450 per night for a deluxe room. Suits start from $US650.