East Java: Niagara Hotel stands tall amid urban sprawl

East Java: Niagara Hotel stands tall amid urban sprawl

Emmy Fitri and Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Lawang, East Java

Niagara Hotel was something special way back when, a
sumptuously constructed villa in the green hills outside of
Malang in East Java. Today, it's not what it once was, but a few
intriguing remnants of its former glory remain.

The cloying scent of incense wafted through the high-ceilinged
room, furnished with a simple desk, synthetic leather sofa and a
noisy 14-inch television atop a plastic chair.

It was a not so warm welcome to the teak-paneled lobby of
Niagara Hotel in Lawang, some two hours drive southwest of
Surabaya,

Once a hilltop retreat for Dutch colonists, Lawang today is a
burgeoning town, its main road a jumble of residences adjacent to
shops selling plastic household wares, toys, clothing and
furniture.

But Niagara is not just another ordinary hotel to be found in
small-town Indonesia. For it has a history.

The five-story building stands out from the encroaching shop-
houses; its rose-brick wall has just been repainted, the aroma of
the paint and gypsum to whiten the building's edges is subtly
inhaled once entering the compound.

A thick stone wall divides the building from the bustling
intercity street. There is no sign, no eye-catching billboard nor
glaring neon logo.

And nor is there a welcoming smile when you make it into the
hotel.

Only the clapping sound of swallows leaving their nests
greeted our car as we pulled up into the courtyard.

"I'm sorry, we really can't tell you anything about this
hotel," the pale-looking receptionist said.

At a hotel, in the business of offering hospitality and
service, one, of course, expects that standardized warm,
blabbering, unstoppable promotional introduction from any of its
staff. So what's going on in here?

The distant look of the staff is off-putting. The rooms are
well lit but appear gloomy. A reproduction of an old painting of
Dutch girls and the plastic flowers on the dining tables, large
teak window panels and the dusty elevator all add to the hollow
feeling that this is a place which time has sadly passed by.

"I am new here, so it's better you talk to pak Willy," he
said, breaking the awkward silence and introducing a polite,
sharp-eyed security guard.

Saying he was a new employee was a polite way of excusing
himself from saying anything about the hotel, or having to answer
any delicate questions. Only eight people work at the hotel, most
of them locals, although Willy was from Flores.

When one sees the beauty and faded elegance of the hotel, it's
especially confounding that the people running it seem to be
doing their best to keep it out of the public eye.

But perhaps they have reason to be wary. Their indifferent
attitude is best characterized as a defense mechanism, for the
hotel has long been the subject of a particularly nasty rumor
that has kept visitors at bay.

Media, including leading Kompas daily, have "exposed" the
story of the supposedly haunted hotel. Now it's the first thing
that comes to mind for locals, and others from all over who have
heard the story, true or not, of a suicide on the premises (the
legend also comes in various other grisly versions).

Well, those kind of things surely kill business. People's
interest in coming, even to drop by for a coffee or another item
from the hotel's limited menu, soon vanishes.

Travelers from Surabaya would rather give the hotel a furtive
passing glance on their way to Malang, an hour's drive from
Lawang, to stay the night.

"What are you doing at the setan (devil's) hotel. It's spooky.
No one goes there anymore," a taxi driver chided, the second or
third person to proffer the warning.

Still, not everybody buys the tales of hauntings; poet W.S.
Rendra and actress Yessy Gusman and her family are among those
who have stayed there.

The building, dating back to 1918 and designed by Brazilian-
born architect Fritz Joseph Pinedo, is one of East Java's
designated heritage buildings.

It was originally a magnificent villa owned by Chinese trade
baron Liem Sian Yu, who later fell on hard times and left for the
Netherlands. The building was bought by a local family and
converted into a hotel in the 1960s.

Each floor of the building has a different character; the
first floor is done in a very Indische Mooi Dutch style, with
spacious reception rooms and high ceilings; the second floor is
full of a heavier Victorian touch, with the grand ceramic walls
and its classic flower and plant embellishments.

The third and fourth floors show a Chinese style, while the
fifth is designed with ornate Indian influences.

On a wall leading into a hallway is an ink drawing of the
hotel, dated 1932, and a framed, yellowing old paper clipping of
Time's "world's bicycle traveler", next to the list of the
hotel's regulations.

So we managed to get a room -- the cheapest at Rp 60,000 per
night, with the bathroom outside. More "luxurious" rooms cost Rp
90,000 and Rp 150,000.

So what about the spooky legend?

Hotel employee Doddy said he enjoyed working there and never
heard anything nor saw strange things.

"Everything is running normally and well here. There have been
no unusual incidents," he said while stirring coffee at the
hotel's pantry, where a vintage ceramic tea set is placed.

Next to the pantry is the dining hall -- formerly the ballroom
of the villa. Plastic chairs and an old coffee table do not
exactly make for a classic decor combination, but they do not
detract from the beauty of the wood paneling and dark green
ceramic floor tiles.

Large bay windows provide a view of the backyard, including a
moss-covered swimming pool and a patch of grass growing untended
near a storage building, perhaps a stable in olden days. "Please
do not take photos there, that is where the swallows nest,"
someone said.

We obediently heeded the request and went straight upstairs to
our room on the second floor.

It was spacious, once again with a distinctive high ceiling,
its only furniture a queen-sized bed and a set of light green
plastic chairs and low table. Clean, but no bathroom.

The other rooms are larger, with a television and bathroom en
suite, but the classic details of yesteryear remain in the wall
decoration and the ceramic floor.

There was a "no entry sign" on the stairs as we tried to go up
to the other floors. "It's closed for construction," Doddy said.

Although the present owner has vowed never to completely
change the design of hotel, times change and today's trends end
up as tomorrow's has-beens. Unfortunately, unlike Surabaya's
Majapahit Hotel, now refurbished and restored to its former
grandeur, that has been the unfortunate fate of Lawang's most
famous, and notorious, building.