Lloyd Hotel

The Lloyd Hotel is a stately building with a rich history, not all of it positive. It was built in the early 20th century by the Royal Dutch Lloyd, a shipping company that would later be incorporated along with others into the modern Nedlloyd company, after it decided to focus on passenger transport following reduced gains in it's freight business.

The hotel was intended as as advertisement for it's Holland-South America line, but when it was finally constructed, it had cost 8 times more than originally planned, negating any financial gains from the PR value and having a hand to play in the bankruptcy of the company in '36.

After the Kristalnacht in Germany, the hotel served as a refuge center for German-Jewish refugees, however, when the Nazi's occupied the country, it was made to serve as a prison, housing roughly 150 people who were incarcerated for protesting the persecution of the Jews.

Despite the lack of cells, it continued to serve as a prison till 1963 and as a youth detention center until 1989. Between 1989 and 1996 the building was abandoned until it was acquired by De Key company. In 2004 finally, it was restored to it's former glory and now once again serves as a hotel.