The Casino Deportivo Zone in Havana’s Cerro Municipality
Photo Feature by Ernesto Gonzalez Diaz
HAVANA TIMES – Framed between Vento, Santa Catalina, and Camagüey avenues, lies the Casino Deportivo, one of the most attractive residential neighborhoods in Havana’s Cerro municipality. Built mostly in the 1950s by the middle and upper class of Havana at the time, it features houses that are true gems of pre-revolutionary Cuban architecture. Like the so-called “casitas de El País,” which extend along Vento Avenue near its intersection with Camagüey Avenue.
These houses, which are visible in the initial images of this work, consist of two floors with four bedrooms, a garage, two bathrooms, kitchen, and dining room, all very spacious and comfortable. They were built by the newspaper “El País” and raffled among its readers between 1955 and 1959. In the rest of the neighborhood, there are also many other houses built during that period, and many of them still maintain their splendor and functionality today.
Many of the original owners of these houses emigrated to the United States after the triumph of the Revolution; in some cases, the properties remained in the hands of servants and service workers such as drivers and gardeners. Nowadays, many have been acquired by people with the economic resources that allow them to maintain them in good condition.
