Luxury Lisbon hotel goes up in flames

An unfinished luxury €10 million 5-star boutique hotel from Amorim Luxury on Lisbon’s Avenida da Liberdade went up in flames on Friday morning.

The turn-of-the-20th-century mansion at 189 Avenida da Liberdade, was being refurbished to become JNcQUOI House, the first boutique hotel from Amorim Luxury, a brand belonging to cork heiress and entrepreneur, Paula Amorim and her husband Miguel Guedes de Sousa.

JNcQUOI confirmed the fire on Friday which had begun around a building site area with carpentry works. There were no injuries and damages to personal effects.

The brand added that it would open an investigation process to ascertain the causes of the fire at the hotel which was to have opened in July.

The construction company carrying out the refurbishment works is Huitre. JNcQUOI has requested a “complete and detailed report” on the causes of the fire.

Paula Amorim is one of the heirs to the company Corticeira Amorim and oil and gas company Galp which was run by her father Américo Amorim, a Portuguese billionaire businessman who died in 2017. In 2023 Paula Amorim was named by the business daily Negócios as the 13th most powerful person in Portugal.

The JNcQUOI brand also owns the restaurant JNcQUOI also on Lisbon’s Avenida da Liberdade, the JNcQUOI Beach Club (Comporta) and other real estate projects planned at Comporta on the Alentejo coast.

In 2005 Paula Amorim also acquired the luxury clothing store Fashion Clinic which currently has stores in Lisbon (Avenida da Liberdade), Porto, and Quinta do Lago.

Since the death of her father in 2017, Paula Amorim has been in front of Grupo Américo Amorim, a large conglomerate that controls Corticeira Amorim together with the family Rios Amorim, as well as Galp. The heiress also has several other assets such as wine estates in both the Douro and Alentejo, and farms (soya, rice and beans) in Mozambique, among many other holdings and investments.