Inside the huge Canary Islands abandoned hotel that's been a ghostly skeleton for 50 years
EXCLUSIVE: A concrete skeleton is all that remains of the failed Anaza Hotel project from the 1970s.
Most of those in the shadow of the abandoned Anaza Hotel cannot remember a time without it.
“I wasn't born and the hotel was already here,” said Moises Alberto Hernandez who owns a house overlooked by the structure. “We are used to it.”
For his 21-year-old son’s generation the thought of a horizon without the concrete skeleton seems even more impossible.
The 22-storey luxury resort has remained frozen in time since 1973 when its German developer halted construction.
In many ways the continued presence of the building should be seen as a blessing, 50 years braced against the torrid winds of the Atlantic Ocean on a sheer rock face could well have resulted in a catastrophic collapse.
Superficially at least the 40,000 square metre building looks the worse for wear. There are cracks along the graffiti-covered concrete walls and rubbish is piled high in the lower levels.
Staring at the bleak remains of the project you can’t help but wonder how different the spectacle along the coast from the Los Picitos village might be had the hotel been delivered.
You can imagine hundreds of holiday-goers leaning from the balconies, the surrounding areas of pools or tennis courts abuzz with people. Instead, the hollow structure offers only a ghostly hint of what could have been.
Locals claim the concrete shell hides even darker secrets.
“We have to demolish it because so many people have died,” Moises claimed. “They fall into a hole and that's it or jump with parachutes.
“Another one jumped from the third floor with an umbrella like Mary Poppins. Many small children have died. It’s dangerous.
“Yesterday there were people upstairs in the hotel and the police came. You can't go in there and there is a fence, but people take it down and go inside.”
Popular with Instgrammers and daredevil explorers, in 2017 footage emerged of a young man leaping from balcony to balcony, a stunt repeated by two others three years later.
Other reported break-ins have seen intruders fly a drone and launch flares from the roof.
In December 2022, a woman in her 50s threatened to jump into the void from the 13th floor until police intervened.
Despite all these incidents, according to local media reports it was only in 2017, when the licence to build the Anaza expired, that the opportunity to permanently remove the structure emerged.
The local authority desperately tried to contact the owner informing them they were responsible for covering the cost of securing the site against intruders in addition to its demolition.
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Balconies for hundreds of rooms have been invaded by thrill seekers (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Moises Alberto Hernandez and his wife have a home in the shadow of the hotel (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
The 40,000 square metre building has been empty for decades (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
The Hotel Anaza is perched on a sheer edge and is battered by the Atlantic Ocean winds (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
The City Council has been desperately trying to contact the owners of the building (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
The hotel attracts thrill seekers some of whom who've done dangerous stunts (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Anaza Hotel has had many visitors in the decades it's been there (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Hotel Anaza is a massive presence on the Northern Tenerife skyline (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
However, by 2019 the search for the developer had proved fruitless and the city council was forced to act itself.
It installed a four-metre-high fence around the perimetre, security cameras and warning signs. A contract was handed to the firm Proyelim SM to demolish in a period of five months.
But five years since that deal was signed the Anaza remains very much still standing, while sections of the fence, as Moises mentioned, have been removed to allow anyone to enter the site.
“They may demolish it at the end of this year or next year,” Moises adds with a shrug of the shoulders. Given the hotel’s resilience so far it’s wise to wonder if it will survive beyond that date.
