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.