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The first auction of the old hotel “Splendid” building, organized by the owner’s heirs, ended unsuccessfully, because there were no people interested in the pre-war building in the very center of the city. The future of the once luxurious hotel, which was finally returned to the heirs of the former owners via restitution three years ago, is still uncertain.
The five-story pre-war building near the Old Palace and not far from the National Assembly used to be known as one of the most prestigious hotels in Belgrade. Today, the door lock keeps only bare walls, dust, and memories.
“There was a reception and some offices, there used to be a restaurant,” says Miodrag Erac, heir to the owner of the Splendid Hotel.
N1: Was there an elevator here?
Erac: “Yes, the elevator was from the beginning, the hotel had its own heating, several floors, that was then, so the radiators were in all the rooms of the hotel, it was built in a modern way, with reinforced concrete between floors, which later in 1923 when it opened It was not the case … “
In 1923, the hotel was built by famous Belgrade tailors: Trifun Jovanović and Miodrag’s great-grandfather, Zivota Lazarević, and 25 years later, the investment made with their life savings was taken from them, in the process of nationalization.
“That day three people came, in leather coats, they said that this is already nationalized, there is someone who is a member of the League of Communists who works in a hotel … There is a doorman who worked and was a member of the League of Communists. and he was appointed director, and these old owners were fired, everything was taken over, “says Erac.
They kept the property papers, which were passed down from generation to generation. The hope that they have some benefits, appeared after the changes of October 5. “There was some pomp in all that, that some injustices would eventually be corrected,” Erac recalls.
They waited another 11 years for the opportunity to return the confiscated property, when the Restitution Law was finally passed. Miodrag Erac was one of the first to file a property return application.
He received the decision to return the hotel in 2012, but due to complicated legal procedures and mutual lawsuits with the Ministry of Finance, he received the key only five years later.
“If it had been returned earlier, it would have been all different. Someone used this for 70 years, during those 70 years they didn’t give people anything,” says the heir.
In 70 years, while it was owned by the state, the hotel was renovated only once, in 1972. State money was invested in the building even after the 2017 presidential elections, when all the windows facing the Presidency and the Assembly of the City were bricked up.
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