Hotel History
History of the Best Luxury Independent Hotel Hastal Prague Old Town****
The property was originally a brewery built around 1850. In 1903, the brewery was closed and
the building was reconstructed into two identical semi-detached apartment houses, each with its own separate entrance and service facilities.
In 1912, Josef Maceka ( great-grandfather of the current owner )
bought one of the two apartment houses and converted it into a hotel, which he named the Hotel Maceka.
The hotel and its restaurant / pub soon thereafter became a popular meeting place often visited by prominent Czech artists
and other well-known Prague personalities including Alfons Mucha, the Zenisek brothers ( who decorated the ceiling of the National Theater ),
as well writers Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hasek ( The author of Good Soldier Schwejk ).
Later in the mid-thirties, Josef Maceka renamed the hotel to the Hotel U Hastala ( Hotel at Hastal ) which better identified the location of the hotel.
After the confiscation and nationalization of the hotel by the Communist government in 1958,
the property was operated by the State hotel and restaurant management company.
In 1968, during the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Russian armed forces, the hotel temporarily became the headquarters of the Russian Central Command.
In 1991, the Czech government officially returned the hotel to the original legal owners ( Maceka parentage ).
