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He Huelva City Hallthrough the Department of Tourism, Promotion of Huelva Abroad and the University, has carried out the reconstruction of one of the chimneys of the old Colón hotel. A ’tile stove’ that after its rehabilitation by the restorer Ana Beltrán, has been included in the exhibition room of the British Legacy.
The Councilor for Tourism, Promotion of Huelva Abroad and University, Francisco Baluffo, stressed that “it is an initiative framed within the work of promoting the British Legacy that we have been developing throughout this legislature, in order to convert it in one of our main tourist resources and backbones of the destination”. “We are working so that the Casa Colón is the place of interpretation of this legacy and with the reconstruction of this chimney we take an important step in that direction”, he pointed out.
The mayor has valued “the recovery of a unique and very singular element of the heritage of the Huelva British, since this type of fireplaces of a long tradition in the alpine areas of Germany and Switzerland were not usual in our country.” Likewise, it has reported the recovery of two more chimneys that were originally in the ballroom of the Casa Colón, located in two private homes in La Ribera and the capital, which the City Council has bought from the owners and has already cataloged for proceed with its restoration.
According to Baluffo “it is one more initiative of the City Council to preserve and promote the tangible and intangible heritage that the British presence left in Huelva and that has become one of the main tourist attractions of our city.” And, in this regard, he also recalled the recent publication by the Department of Tourism of a new informative brochure in Spanish, English and German that reveals the main milestones of this legacy of who was one of its main promoters, the Spanish-German engineer Guillermo Sundheim.
The fireplace has been recovered from the pieces preserved in the basement of the Casa Colón from one of the stoves that was originally located in the bedrooms of the luxurious Hotel Colón, a piece of terracotta with enamels decorated with circular medallions of plant decoration, from the Nuremberg factory, under the direction of Johann Hausleiter.
For its recovery, the restorer Ana Beltrán has carried out a very laborious job that began with the cleaning of each of the pieces, both on the back and front faces, reconstructing the volumes and color of the areas that had been lost with suitable pigments and varnishes. Throughout this process, the restorer has been inspired by an old photograph kept in one of the hotel suites.
Likewise, it has been necessary to create a very precise metal structure on which the different pieces have been meticulously attached to form the fireplace as it can be seen today and on which a portrait of Guillermo Sundheim has been placed, also recreated for the occasion.
the old hotel Colón was an establishment full of modernity and in which the latest technological advances of that time were incorporated, such as the telephone exchange, the modern electric lighting of the Great Hall or a wide network of fresh and salt water in the different dependencies.
The furniture was made up of old oak items from the Casa Bembé in Mainz,
rattan from Hamburg and wicker from England and Germany. The 300-cover tableware was from the Royal Porcelain Factory of Saxony and the kitchens came from the Bandot House in Paris.
