Qualla: Hotel Habana Riviera

Hotel Habana Riviera: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Callelinea, Public domain. Meyer Lansky's official title at the Havana Riviera was kitchen director. Nobody believed it for a second. From his Presidential Suite on the top floor, the man the FBI considered the most dangerous organized crime figure in America controlled every aspect of a 21-floor, 352-room hotel that he had willed into existence on Havana's Malecon waterfront. The casino alone pulled in over $3 million in its first four months. By New Year's Eve 1958, Lansky was chartering a plane to the Bahamas, his dream of a Caribbean gambling empire shattered by revolution. The hotel still stands on the Vedado seafront, its original 1950s decor largely intact -- a glamorous time capsule of the thirteen months when the mob ran Havana.

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Image: Callelinea | Public domain

Hotel Habana Riviera: A Gangster's Blueprint

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Miss Bono at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. The idea came from Las Vegas. After visiting the nine-story Riviera Casino on the Strip, owned by his friend Moe Dalitz, Lansky decided to build something grander in Havana -- a hotel that would rival any on the Strip but operate beyond the reach of US law and the FBI. He chose C...

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Image: Miss Bono at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Hotel Habana Riviera: Miami Modern on the Malecon

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jorge Royan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lansky wanted the hotel built in under six months, a demand so extreme that Wayne McAllister -- the prolific designer of the Desert Inn, Fremont, and Sands hotels -- turned the project down. Igor Boris Polevitzky, a pioneer of Miami Modern architecture, took the job instead, with...

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Image: Jorge Royan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hotel Habana Riviera: Opening Night and the Stars Who Followed

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bin im Garten, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the Havana Riviera opened on December 10, 1957, it was the largest purpose-built casino-hotel in the world outside Las Vegas. Ginger Rogers headlined the opening act at the Copa Cabaret with a music revue directed by choreographer Jack Cole. Lansky was characteristically blu...

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Image: Bin im Garten | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hotel Habana Riviera: Revolution Sweeps In

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antonio Schubert from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Havana Riviera enjoyed barely thirteen months of operation before Fidel Castro's revolution upended everything. On New Year's Eve 1958, with his health failing and the rebels closing in, Lansky chartered a plane to the Bahamas. With him went the dream of sitting at the center...

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Image: Antonio Schubert from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hotel Habana Riviera: The Riviera Endures

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Happypepe, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Hotel Habana Riviera still stands on the Malecon, its 1950s architecture and decor remarkably preserved through decades of state operation. The Palacio de la Salsa Club, where salsa bands perform regularly, keeps live music echoing through the same halls where Ginger Rogers o...

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Image: Happypepe | CC BY-SA 4.0