Pasanggrahan Royal Guest House.
PHILIPSBURG--The Pasanggrahan Royal Guest House, one of the registered monuments in St. Maarten, has requested another extension from the Development Bank OBNA for more time to obtain finances to avert the public auction of the property, which is set for December 10.
Management said in a statement on Monday that despite its request, “the bank is not interested in the heritage of the island but only to collect their due funding.”
According to management, an Italian group rumoured to bid for the country’s oldest monument wants to construct “a casino village” in town, while an “Indian group, known to all,” is ready to bid “to undermine the monument and all it stands for. This is the same group that wiped off all old houses and monuments on Front Street in the heart of Philipsburg. The same group whose intention is to wipe off the final St. Maarten historical landmark on Front Street,” management said.
According to management, the Guest House had been historically preserved and maintained for many years until it was crippled during the passing of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017. The monument and its hotel rooms “were catastrophically destroyed” and still have not recovered.
These factors, coupled with a pending court case for damage claims from the hurricanes, and now the impact of the global economy downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, make it difficult to request urgent finances.
“These factors have put the monument and the hotel rooms in a financial predicament of being auctioned by the Development Bank OBNA. The bank in which the government of St. Maarten is a major shareholder is ready to auction off St. Maarten heritage to the highest bidder. Both bidders are from out of the land and by different countries and being represented by the St. Maarten person,” the statement read.
According to the hotel, there has been an outpouring of concern and requests from the community, from French St. Martin and from sister islands about the auction of the monument due to the current financial crisis.
“The Pasanggrahan management has sent a proposal for the sale of the monument to the Island of St. Maarten via its representatives in the government and members of St. Maarten communities. We hereby ask our communities to make our voice heard and request more time to get the needed finances, and to support the sale of the monument to the St. Maarten island,” management said.
“It is our obligation to future generations, the trust lands from forefathers. It is the community working together. The government of St. Maarten should not repeat the same mistake made from the sale of Fort Amsterdam on Divi’s hill. The government of St. Maarten should not allow to erase history from this last monument like what happened on Front Street.
“Every St. Maarten person has a story to tell about the Pasanggrahan. Every tourist who visited St. Maarten has a story about the Pasanggrahan. Every church, school, community has a story about the Pasanggrahan. If these old walls could talk, you would hear the voices of ancestors advising us to save our heritage.”
Pasanggrahan was originally a chicken farm in the late 1880s where ancestors obtained chickens, eggs, and milk from the goats to prepare meals for the family, hence the symbol of the “rooster” or the “founder” of Pasanggrahan. This rooster is widely displayed around the hotel and on all printed pamphlets, menus, and all advertisements of the hotel.
The Guest House was originally erected to accommodate the visits of the Royal Family whenever they visited the island during the colonisation era. It then became a centre for the headquarters of various groups, including government and the police.
It served as a location for the overflow of patients from the St. Rose dispensary next door, a place to congregate for the Queen’s birthday celebrations, the first lighting of the Christmas tree for the island every year, as well as a market centre for women artisans and local artists.
Pasanggrahan Guest House is built on one ancestral “meetbrief”. It received no subsidy annually for repairs of the monument. To sustain the operational cost of the Guest House for guests, maintain repairs for the monument, generate salaries for the labour force, and provide taxes to government, management built separate buildings of guest rooms to rent, enlarged the small kitchen and served food, repaired bars and served beverages.
These guest rooms are constructed on the same “meetbrief” as the monument Guest House, and all maintained the same West Indies-style designs, management said.
