the imperial eagle has just returned to the façade of the Eden hotel

75

“It has nothing to do with the Nazi eagle,” says Gabriela Sánchez, who is prepared to respond again and again. “It will surely be the first thing that visitors will ask,” she adds, about the novelty presented by the Edén hotel, in La Falda.

A giant eagle landed again on the main façade of one of the oldest hotels in Córdoba and the one that accumulates the most intriguing stories.

The eagle is almost the same as the one that was in that same place when the hotel was built, back in 1898, but which disappeared in 1945 when Adolf Hitler fell and World War II ended.

Mysteries always flood Eden: no one knows who removed that pure bronze eagle, and its fate is never known. But it is assumed that they mistook it for a Nazi symbol and that is why they blew it up.

Days ago, the eagle returned. The Eden concession company, which maintains the property in exchange for exploiting tourist visits, decided to hire a renowned blacksmith artist to build, based on old photos, a faithful copy of that emblem. It is no longer made of bronze: it came back, but made of wire welding.

“It is what the hotel was missing to recover the image of the façade that it had in its heyday,” says Sánchez, who is in charge of the former hotel’s visitor services.

“The Nazi eagle was quite different from this one and had the swastika. Nothing to see,” he says.

The Eden Hotel with the eagle restored to its upper part. The façade is very similar to the one it had in its tourist heyday (La Voz)

Crossing stories

Eden was inaugurated 126 years ago, in 1898. German Robert Bahlke built it, imagining that it would make it attractive for vacations for the wealthiest families in his country.

Photos from those years show that the eagle was already guarding the façade. “It is the classic Roman imperial eagle; It is not even of German origin,” the guide points out.

Nazism did not yet exist in anyone’s imagination. Hitler was 9 years old when Eden was inaugurated.

Bahlke’s dream of making money in the Punilla Valley did not last long: in 1904 his business went bankrupt.

One of the first photos of the Eden hotel. The original eagle, in the center of the façade.

In 1912, the Eichorn couple, of German origin, bought the hotel and the 900 hectares that surrounded it.

“The Skirt did not exist then. To pay for the extensions and improvements they made, the Eichorns began to subdivide the surrounding area and thus Villa Edén was born,” says Sánchez. It was the preview of the mountain town that would later become La Falda.

“The Eichorns met Hitler in 1921, in Germany, before he came to power. Seduced by his ideas, they were part of the financiers who contributed to his campaigns,” says Gabriela. Part of the resources generated in Eden had that destination.

“In 1945, they left the hotel because as war booty it was seized and briefly occupied by Japanese diplomacy,” says Sánchez. In those days they made the eagle fly: it was almost the only damage that was visible. In 1947, the Government of Juan Perón returned the hotel to the Eichorns, but it had already lost prestige and added controversy, like its owners.

Citizens

120 years. Córdoba in 1904: when tourism was an exclusive luxury for the aristocracy

Sánchez completes the story: in 1948 it was sold to an Argentine company (Las 3 K) but after twists and turns, and without regaining its shine, it had its last season with tourists in 1965. That was 58 years ago.

Then there were some frustrated attempts at recovery – and once again intriguing businesses – until it began its phase of abandonment and even looting.

Today it is a site for a very attractive tour of that history in ruins, with some recovered spaces.

Eden Hotel. The sculptor Fabián Villani at work, days ago (La Voz)

The wire wizard

Fabián Villani is a sculptor from Villa Constitución, Santa Fe. In 2020 he had already made a large sculpture for the same El Edén property. “Then they talked to me about recreating the Roman eagle on the façade. The work took me a year, I took several photos of the original as a size and shape reference,” says the artist, with the work already finished.

“It weighs 370 kilos and is 1.25 meters high and 1.60 meters wide. She is armed with wires all joined together with solders,” she points out, about her large-scale goldsmith work.

The eagle once again dominates the entrance. And the guides there are prepared to explain, over and over again, that he is not a Nazi.

Eden Hotel in La Falda. The sculptor Fabián Villani with his imperial eagle already placed on top. The task required a crane. (The Voice)Eden Hotel. An image of its tourist heyday.