Palácio Guanabara — Laranjeiras, Rio de Janeiro

About the building

The Palácio Guanabara, on Rua Pinheiro Machado at the edge of Laranjeiras, is the working seat of the governor of Rio de Janeiro state. Built in 1853 as a private mansion and rebuilt in palatial form after the imperial family acquired it, it sits behind gates and formal gardens at the point where Laranjeiras meets Botafogo.

Residents don't visit it day to day, but it shapes the neighborhood around it — security, preserved garden frontage, and the cluster of institutions along Rua Pinheiro Machado, including the Fluminense football club's historic grounds nearby.

Address: Rua Pinheiro Machado s/n, Laranjeiras, Rio de Janeiro

History

The house was built in 1853 by the Portuguese merchant José Machado Coelho and entered imperial hands in the 1860s, becoming the residence of Princess Isabel and her husband, the Count d'Eu — in that era it was known as Paço Isabel. With the proclamation of the Republic in 1889 the family went into exile and the palace was confiscated; Isabel's heirs litigated its ownership for over a century, a case the Supreme Court only closed in 2020, confirming federal ownership.

In the republican era it served presidents and city government before becoming the seat of the State of Guanabara in 1960, a role it kept for the merged State of Rio de Janeiro after 1975.

Notable residents

Princesa Isabel Heir to the Brazilian throne and signer of the 1888 abolition law, who lived in the palace — then called Paço Isabel — with her husband, the Count d'Eu, from 1865 until the fall of the Empire.

Source: Wikipédia — Palácio Guanabara