One of its directors was Antonio Arantes e Oliveira, who was a brother of the future Governor-General of Mozambique and who had a close connection with the fascist Portuguese dictator, Salazar.

The Grande Hotel became a symbol of the success of the Estado Novo in Beira, as it was intended to provide luxury accommodation for VIPS, business travelers, and wealthy tourists from Southern Rhodesia, the Union of South Africa, and from Portugal or its colonies.

[citation needed] The exterior of the Grande Hotel was done in the Art Deco style that was popular in Portugal during the Estado Novo era of the 1930s and 1940s.

The interior, however, was done in an eclectic style and with the use of modern materials in a manner unusual in Beira at that time and even seldom used in other works of the architect, Francisco de Castro.

[citation needed] In 1955, the Grande Hotel opened in an event officiated by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Beira, Sebastião Soares de Resende.

White residents of Beira could use the swimming pool, and they recalled the Grande Hotel as a palace of unlimited luxury where one could eat the finest chocolate.

They could not afford the luxuries of the Grande Hotel, instead preferring beach holidays in the tourist district of Macuti, 8 km from the city centre.

[citation needed] After twenty years, the Grande Hotel Beira was closed, deemed by the company to be unprofitable and too costly to keep open.

However, the white residents of Southern Africa could not afford this level of luxury, and Beira was not known as a holiday destination for wealthy people, who already preferred the Bazaruto Archipelago at Vilanculos, the Mediterranean city life style of the Mozambican capital Lourenço Marques, the South African Krüger National Park and the Victoria Falls in Rhodesia.

Later, the bar at the swimming pool became the office of Frelimo's Revolutionary Committee, which was responsible for establishing socialism in Beira and the province of Sofala.

[citation needed] In 1978, the communist Frelimo government assumed ownership of private land, a move that resulted in the exodus of the remaining Mozambican-Portuguese community that had dominated the local economy.

However, the Grande Hotel was one of the exceptions, and its land and the building remain the property of the Portuguese Grupo Entreposto SA, the continuation of the Companhia de Moçambique.

Renamo was established by the Rhodesian Army and the South African Defence Force with the aim of destroying the communist Frelimo regime.

As a result, the city became a haven for refugees seeking safety and access to international aid entering through the sea harbour and airport.

There is little formal maintenance of the collective space, resulting in accumulating garbage, leaking rain water, open elevator shafts and inaccessible stairs.

[citation needed] Most inhabitants find work only in the informal economic sector; they are, as implied by their nickname of 'whato muno' (not from here), excluded from the formal socio-economic life of Beira.

[citation needed] The local municipal authority would like to relocate the current inhabitants, providing housing in the slum of Chipangara, and then demolish the structure and develop the land for commercial uses.