Ex Hotel Palace, Former hotel in Iquitos, Peru

The Ex Hotel Palace is a three-story Art Nouveau building in Iquitos situated along Malecón Tarapacá. It features wrought iron balconies with plant motifs, intricate metalwork, and tall entrance portals that display the European design vocabulary of its era.

The structure was built between 1908 and 1912 under engineer Samuel Young Mass and architect José Altamira y Motta during the peak of the Amazon rubber trade. Its construction marks a moment of intense wealth and European influence in this remote South American city.

The building's name comes from Otoniel Vela Llerena, who commissioned it as the Casa Vela; it later became the Palace Hotel. Its Málaga tiles and wrought-iron balconies with plant shapes were shipped across the Atlantic, and the design mixes Gothic and neoclassical elements with Catalan modernisme. Since 1961 it has housed the Eastern Military Region offices.

The building now serves as an administrative office and is located one block from the Plaza de Armas, making it easy to reach. Visitors should view and photograph it from the street, as it is a government building.

The coin's official name for the image is "Antiguo Hotel Palace, 1912", and 12 million of the coins were scheduled for circulation. The building is the oldest luxury hotel in Peru, predating Lima's Gran Hotel Bolívar by 12 years.