We return to the Gran Vía to stop at number 11, in the current Hotel de las Letras, a beautiful building. It was the stately home of the Count of Artaza, who on November 21, 1918 received an honorable mention in the 1917 Madrid City Council Building Competition.

The Viscount of Artaza acquired a huge plot of land to build a residential building with commercial premises, which he commissioned from the architect Cesáreo Iradier Uriarte, who distributed up to eight stores on the ground floor and mezzanine, surrounding a central communications core with main and service stairs, elevator and freight elevator that gave access to three floors on each of the five upper floors. The work began in 1915 and ended in 1917.

Julián Olivares y Solivian, Count of Artaza, was a shareholder member of the Spanish Shipbuilding Society, of the Council of Shareholders of the Bank of Spain, governor of San Sebastián, member of the Senate for the conservative liberal group and great friend of Eduardo Dato. An important character of the Madrid aristocracy.

Iradier uses the Neoplateresque style, in what is probably one of his best works, to cover a volume with a façade facing three streets and rounded corners, crowned by towers. Right next to another building that we love, the one on Military Casino.

A abrazo.