Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Eva Longoria’s TV pilot filmed at Fontainebleau
For a few weeks, the Fontainebleau Miami Beach was a stand-in for the Grand Riviera Hotel. That’s the fictional resort in Eva Longoria’s new TV pilot “Grand Hotel” — a drama series that follows a family that owns a hotel and the staff who run it.
Longoria is the executive producer of the pilot, which has been picked up by ABC. It is based on the Spanish drama “Gran Hotel” that was set in Spain in the early 1900s.
“I was obsessed with the Spanish one,” Longoria said over the phone from Mexico last week. “I thought it was so good. I want to make this in English.”
The original soapy drama, which has been described as a “Spanish Downton Abbey,” followed the mysteries of the owners of a hotel and their servants during the reign of Spanish King Alfonso XIII. That series ran for 39 episodes from 2011-13 in Spain.
Longoria’s version takes place in modern day Miami Beach.
“Our story is about the last family-owned hotel in Miami Beach. It’s a fictional story,” said Longoria, a part-time Miami Beach resident with her husband Jose “Pepe” Baston. The couple are expecting their first child to-
gether.
Once she received the green light from ABC for the pilot, Longoria said the Fontainebleau was on her wish list for places to shoot.
“We needed something grand and elegant and iconic and we needed that Miami modern look as well,” she said of the luxury resort which was built in 1954 and designed by famed architect Morris Lapidus. “It was exactly the palette we were looking for — it represented glamour, sophistication and elegance and it still carries on today.”
She reached out to the Fontainebleau’s hotel president and chief operating officer Philip Goldfarb whom she said she had known for a while.
‘I called him and said, ‘We need your hotel,’ ” she recalled. And Goldfarb said yes. “As soon as we learned more about the story, we instantly knew we would be a perfect fit and could not be more excited to be part of this great project,” he said. “Our team members have really enjoyed working with them to help turn their vision into a reality.”
Filming at the hotel lasted about three weeks in March and wrapped up before Easter.
“They were a dream to work with. They were wonderful to our production,” Longoria said of the hotel staff. “Everything we needed was there in one facility.”
She noted that crews filmed all over the resort — the grand lobby, hallways, the rooms, presidential suite, the pool area and the beach.
The project will star Demian Bichir, who will play Gonzalo Cardenas as the hotel owner, and Roselyn Sanchez as Gigi Cardenas who plays his wife. (Sanchez had also starred in the Lifetime series “Devious Maids” in which Longoria was an executive producer.)
Longoria, an ABC “Desperate Housewives” alum, and Ben Spector are executive producers of “Grand Hotel” under their UnbeliEVAble Entertainment production company, which produces films, documentaries and television programming.
With production completed, Longoria said the next phase is editing. The pilot will be broadcast only air if the show gets picked up to series, according to ABC. The network will know in May.
She’s optimistic for a full season on ABC.
“We are definitely hopeful. We have Oscar-nominated Demian Bichir. We have Roselyn Sanchez. We have an amazing cast,” Longoria said. “I have been dying to do a show in Miami, because I love it so much.”