Eusebio Leal Spengler (1942-2020) was 16 when the dictator Fulgencio Batista, having made millions from bribes from mafia-run casinos, fled into exile on New Year’s Day 1959. A devout Catholic, Leal rushed to ring the church bells to usher in the new era, as heaps of Habaneros took to the streets in jubilation.
Presidential palace
made into Palace of the Revolution
After the 1959 revolution brought Fidel Castro to power, public education in Cuba became free. Leal grew up in poverty, spending his young years in libraries reading history and architecture. He was made an apprentice in the Office of Historian.
At the City Historian’s office, Leal’s role was more hands-on construction worker than chronicler of Havana’s past. Inspired by a childhood spent absorbing the colours and crowds of Old Havana, he dreamt of reversing the city’s 1960s stagnation and rekindling the magic of earlier eras, Baroque, Neoclassical or Art Deco.In 1975, earned a bachelor’s degree in history. Later he got a Ph.D in historical sciences from Havana University.
While Che Guevara and Castro still lurk on countless Havana bill boards, Leal was more subtle. In Cuba he commanded widespread respect but outside Cuba, few have heard of him. Yet over 50 years, this academic transformed Old Havana from a crumbling slum into the finest restoration project in the Americas.
His work started unpromisingly. Leal spent years on his first restoration project, converting the C18th governor’s palace in Havana’s Plaza de Armas into the city’s main museum. In 1961 Cuba had been hit by Pres. Kennedy’s trade embargo; Castro’s post-revolutionary government was more interested in its survival than revisiting Havana’s imprecise past. And see the Presidential Palace on Havana’s Plaza 13 de Marzo; in 1974, it became the Museum of the Revolution.
Leal focused his preservation efforts in the 1980s, when the old centre of the capital was a ruin. Residents lived without indoor plumbing or reliable electricity, garbage piled up on the streets, and 250-year-old buildings sometimes collapsed before their eyes. By renovating Havana’s colonial core, Leal safeguarded the best of the city’s architecture, helped resuscitate the Cuban economy and enhanced the capital’s flagging infrastructure with many social projects. And Leal found an early ally. His museum work attracted the eye of Celia Sánchez, an historical archivist close to the new regime and an entry into the higher echelons of the Cuban government. With Sánchez’s help, Old Havana became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. Still isolated by Kennedy’s embargo, the city’s colonial relics looked awful but at least they were protected from demolition.
Times were getting harder. With the collapse of theSoviet Union in 1991, Cuba’s economy fell over, as Cubans struggled to find enough food for their families. Ironically, the upheaval offered Leal the biggest opportunity of his career. Note that Fidel Castro was a trained lawyer. Out of the economic crisis Castro, whom Leal had befriended, gave him unique authority to collect taxes and profits from tourism in the old centre. The government was forced to turn to tourism to rescue its stuttering economy. As hotel development was prescribed for Cuba’s northern beaches, Leal convinced Castro that Havana’s unique but frayed historical heritage, could lure visitors.
To avoid turning the colonial centre into a historical theme park, Leal redesigned the city as an authentic living space that provided social benefits for the quarter’s 65,000 inhabitants. For every tourist hotel and museum, there was to be a local committee, care home and school. And behind the Fototeca de Cuba Gallery on Plaza Vieja, a Spanish court yard with 8 new flats were inhabited by the original families.
In 1994 Leal set up Habaguanex, a state-run company, and ploughed money into his projects. Armed with US$1 million from the government and the promise of nurturing further investment from abroad, Habaguanex converted semi-ruined colonial buildings into hotels and museums, remaining totally faithful to their original designs. As the tourists arrived, the money Habaguanex banked was invested back into the city, for historical preservation and urban regeneration.
As Habaguanex became a self-financing entity, Leal created a masterplan, splitting Old Havana into coded zones and prioritising buildings by their condition, age and historical importance. The first to be renovated under the plan was Ambos Mundos Hotel, a favourite of Ernest Hemingway. Other hotels followed, along with museums, antique shops, redesigned restaurants and muscular forts. One arcade and office building from 1917 underwent a city-led restoration and reopened in 2017 as the Hotel Manzana Kempinski.
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Casa de Juan Mata on the Plaza Vieja.
It became became Fototeca de Cuba Gallery in 1986
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Arcade and office building 1917,
In 1994 Leal set up Habaguanex, a state-run company, and ploughed money into his projects. Armed with US$1 million from the government and the promise of nurturing further investment from abroad, Habaguanex converted semi-ruined colonial buildings into hotels and museums, remaining totally faithful to their original designs. As the tourists arrived, the money Habaguanex banked was invested back into the city, for historical preservation and urban regeneration.
As Habaguanex became a self-financing entity, Leal created a masterplan, splitting Old Havana into coded zones and prioritising buildings by their condition, age and historical importance. The first to be renovated under the plan was Ambos Mundos Hotel, a favourite of Ernest Hemingway. Other hotels followed, along with museums, antique shops, redesigned restaurants and muscular forts. One arcade and office building from 1917 underwent a city-led restoration and reopened in 2017 as the Hotel Manzana Kempinski.
It became became Fototeca de Cuba Gallery in 1986
now Hotel Manzana Kempinski
![]()
Residential street, renewed
By the mid-2000s, c300 buildings, a third of those in Old Havana, had been renovated. Leal, who died in July 2020 aged 77, was called The Cuban who Saved Havana, a tireless ambassador for his city. Working within the Communist system, he pioneered a network that saved the district’s architectural heritage at the same time as maintaining its community life.
By 2011 Cuba was attracting 3 mill visitors a year and Habaguanex’s initial start-up fund of $1 mill had grown to $119 mill in annual revenue. Paradoxically Old Havana became a capitalist success story: the restored buildings drew foreign tourists whose money then paid for more restoration. But the process was slow and Old Havana’s renewal came at a cost i.e some residents had to be relocated when the overcrowded buildings were modernised.
As head of the Office of Historian, Leal had employed 3,000 workers and was hailed as a hero for conservationists everywhere. Now there is hardly a street or square in Old Havana that doesn’t show Leal’s mark. He received Orders of Merit from 6 countries and in 2012, Havana was named one of the 25 World Heritage sites with great conservation practices. Joshua David of the World Monuments Fund in New York visited Havana for Leal’s 2017 workshop on architectural restoration. Yet Leal remained an unpretentious figure who loved walking Havana’s streets.
As head of the Office of Historian, Leal had employed 3,000 workers and was hailed as a hero for conservationists everywhere. Now there is hardly a street or square in Old Havana that doesn’t show Leal’s mark. He received Orders of Merit from 6 countries and in 2012, Havana was named one of the 25 World Heritage sites with great conservation practices. Joshua David of the World Monuments Fund in New York visited Havana for Leal’s 2017 workshop on architectural restoration. Yet Leal remained an unpretentious figure who loved walking Havana’s streets.
By the mid-2000s, c300 buildings, a third of those in Old Havana, had been renovated. Leal, who died in July 2020 aged 77, was called The Cuban who Saved Havana, a tireless ambassador for his city. Working within the Communist system, he pioneered a network that saved the district’s architectural heritage at the same time as maintaining its community life.