The Havana Riviera Hotel was built in 1957 and has ever since been a symbol of elegance and good taste. It still preserves its original decoration, and is located at the very heart of the city of Havana, in the popular Vedado neighborhood.

We need to go on a trip back in time, make some history, and walk down the streets of the old colonial Vedado...The area covered by this neighborhood today used to be an idle ground in the past. The need to defend the village of San Cristobal de La Habana from the attacks of corsairs and pirates, and specially to protect the fleets that concentrated in Havana (since 1561, by virtue of an ordinance issued by the Royal Crown of Spain), made the town council or city hall of Havana to prohibit any transit down the creek. Trespassers were severely punished, and that is why this area started to be called "Terrenos Vedados" (Forbidden Grounds), a name that it would finally adopt as its own in the 20th century, with the advent of urban development.
By the end of the 1950′s, the notorious mafia chief Meyer Lansky travels to Havana with the aim of expanding the sphere of influence of his business towards the Cuban capital, after having created a series of alliances with similar entities in Las Vegas.

His main idea was to create a network of hotels and casinos all along Havana′s shoreline. To this end he founded the Riviera de Cuba S.A. company which will approve to the construction of a horizontal-style hotel with an eighteen-story tower at the intersection of Paseo No. 1 and Malecón, which was to be called Havana Riviera Hotel.

The original blueprints of the hotel were made in Miami, Florida, by the Fedelman Construction Corporation, as well as by the facultative architect based in Cuba Manuel Carrera Machado. The hotel was named Riviera to evoke the famous French Riviera.