It was once considered a symbol of an African dream.
But there is not much left of it.
The former luxury hotel “Ducor” lies in ruins.
The hotel was the first 5-star hotel in all of West Africa in 1960.
It notably housed executives and government officials.
Due to recurring civil wars in Liberia, the hotel closed in 1989.
Peter Assac, security guard at the former luxury hotel, remembers the situation at the time.
“It’s because of the war. The hotel opened and stayed open during the war. There were people who stayed here. We even had the interim president live here. And right after the war we had the interim government. Most of them lived in this building.”
In 2011, the government sold the hotel to the Libyan African Investment Company (LAICO), a subsidiary of the Libyan sovereign wealth fund.
Their goal: to get the neglected building up and running again.
However, another civil war prevented the project.
Neighbor Henry Medwake tells how squatters left the hotel.
“There were displaced people because after the war people fled from everywhere and some came and lived here, they lived here, people who became squatters. During Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s presidency, they wanted to renovate, but it never worked. So now it’s just deserted and secured.”
What should happen to the former luxury building in the future?
Nobody knows. Time stands still in the abandoned ruins for so long.