Urbex – Grand Hôtel Regnier

Abandoned hotel somewhere in Belgium. This luxury hotel has been built around 1904 and must have been really majestic in its time. I don’t know for how long it’s been left abandoned but probably for a long time looking at how decayed it is. One can easily imagine the magnificent receptions this hotel must have seen.

The main attraction of the hotel is the old piano in the big reception room. On the upper floors, the long corridors remind you somehow of Stanley Kubrick’s Shining. On the day of my visit, I had the chance to meet the owner of the hotel. A very nice old man. He told me a bit about the hotel, that it closed because it went bankrupt, that no one volunteered to take over the hotel  and that he wasn’t able to afford the cost of maintenance of it. He seemed very sad about it, this hotel must have been a big part of his life. He told me that the hotel would probably be demolished and that a new building would be built. He allowed me to explore his hotel and to take pictures of it, but he warned me to be really careful because the floor was very fragile. Before leaving, he handed me an old folder of the hotel when it was still running. A nice meeting with a nice person, which is very rare when doing urban exploration.