Gangs in Haiti burn beloved Gothic gingerbread hotel that rose to international fame

Haiti's once-illustrious Grand Hôtel Oloffson, a beloved Gothic gingerbread home that inspired books, and attracted famous visitor was burned down by gangs.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti‘s once-illustrious Grand Hôtel Oloffson, a beloved Gothic gingerbread home that inspired books, hosted parties until dawn and attracted visitors from Mick Jagger to Haitian presidents, was burned down by gangs this past weekend.

Hundreds of Haitians and foreigners mourned the news as it spread across social media, with the hotel manager on Monday confirming the fire on X. Even though gang violence had forced the hotel in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, to close in recent years, many had hoped it would reopen.

“It birthed so much culture and expression,” said Riva Précil, a Haitian-American singer who lived in the hotel from age 5 to 15. In a tearful phone interview, Précil recalled how she learned to swim, dance and sing at the Oloffson.

Longtime hotel manager Richard Morse, who had been overseeing the property remotely from the United States since the hotel’s closure in 2022, told The Associated Press on Monday that for several months, there were persistent rumors that the hotel had burned.

“So when I heard Sunday morning that it burned, I did what I usually do, which is call someone who has drones and have them go take a look,” he said. “This time, when they called back, they said something like, ‘take a seat.’ I knew then that this wasn’t like the other times.”