of Bermuda's growing wealth through burgeoning tourism.

Now, some say it is a symbol of Bermuda's economic metamorphosis with a hotel about to be replaced by offices for off-shore insurance companies.

The Bermudiana Hotel has lived twice, rising from the ashes once, but now almost certainly doomed. Inside it looks condemned.

One wall has been sliced open leaving pipes gaping. Inside, the ceiling is strewn across the floor and the penthouse suites are empty apart from smashed glass from the windows.

The gardens are unkempt, chandeliers lie twisted and rusting on the ground and the once resplendant ballroom is a charred shell.

If the latest plans for the site succeed, and there is every indication they will, the Bermudiana will soon be just a memory frozen in old tourist guides.

It was from ashes that the present Bermudiana rose after the original hotel was burnt down.

Opened in the 1920s, Hotel Bermudiana was described in the guide book `Beautiful Bermuda' as the "newest and finest of Bermuda's hotels''. The 1929 guide adds: "It is unrivalled not only in the beauty and distinction of its design, but in the innumerable modern comforts and conveniences which the fastidious and exciting taste of the traveller warrants him in expecting.

"Within the Hotel the lavishness of the appointments of the lounge, grillroom, dining-rooms, cafe, library, verandahs, plazas and other general rooms is such as to inspire at once a feeling of hospitality which is inseparable from hotel services of the highest type''.

Today adults remember being woken as children in September, 1958 to see the Bermuda sky red with flames leaping from the Hotel Bermudiana as it burned.

Two years later, in 1960, the present Bermudiana Hotel was opened, with more storeys and more rooms.

People still talk of the New Year's Eve parties and the ballroom with its chandeliers. Many romances were said to have started at the hotel and ended at the altar.

Then, almost exactly 30 years after it was burnt down the hotel closed down in 1988.

Today it is a semi-derelict eyesore. At the back, the hotel has been sliced open by demolition men and air ducts gape, pipes are split at odd angles and wires hang down like decorations from an old party.

The basement is damp and eerie with six-inch thick doors opening onto the gloom of cold storage rooms. It is quiet as the sounds are filtered out in the darkness.

Two huge rusting boilers stand seemingly ready to heat the hotel again with temperature gauges stuck into identical positions.

Upstairs and the once busy, pristine dining room is empty, its floor covered in rubble and pieces of the ceiling, where it has fallen.

Some of the 1960s and 1970s wallpaper with white fake bamboo patterns on a green background survives. A plant has seeded itself in a corner.

By the dining room, the kitchen is silent, with white tiles yellowed and dirty and peeling from the wall.

End near for once great hotel Flaking bricks on the floor outline where the cooking range once stood. One clock is stuck at 3.09 and another at 2.54.

Kitchen sinks are intact and a huge refrigerator stands incongruously alone.

At the reception area old rusted safe deposit boxes lie broken and empty on the floor. A list of the reception's float showing hundreds of dollars is a reminder of busy times.

The once resplendent ballroom is a burnt shell and huge metal beams running the width of the room are exposed after the dance floor burnt away.

Between the beams, two chandeliers lie twisted and rusted on the floor, the crowns which topped them bent out of shape, like a monarch fallen.

Part of the ballroom lies open to the skies after a brush with the demolition man's ball and chain.

Upstairs, almost every room is identical -- with missing sinks, baths, toilets, or with all three gone. Bits of old carpet underlay have been left and in one room the royal blue carpet remains, although sodden. In some rooms the patterned red or blue pelmet is left above the windows.

Every room is scattered with rubbish. Every room has the windows open, smashed or missing and the breeze slowly snakes through the building, rustling past flapping wallpaper.

On the top floor, the penthouse suites are empty, the fireplace cold and the kitchenette ripped out. The grandeur of the plush rooms has long since faded.

Outside, the walled-in gardens are overgrown and alive with insects. The pool house is derelict and a small indoor pool is barely visible beneath out-of-control plants.

The swimming pool slopes down to the stagnant covering of mud and rainwater, plants and tall grass. Patios are cracked and covered in waist-high weeds.

Two tennis courts are covered in rubble and the courts themselves are cracked.

An old set of floodlights fails to illuminate an ugly scene.

*** On Friday MPs passed the Bermudiana Site Rehabilitation Bill allowing insurance giants ACE Ltd. and Exel Ltd. to own the land which they have agreed to buy from Argus Insurance.

With the passage of the Bill, ACE and Exel hope to get get planning permission for their office plan by the end of next month. If so, demolition work will begin soon after.

The eyesore that is a blot on Bermuda's landscape will disappear, the metamorphosis from hotel to offices will begin.

INSIDE VIEW -- Only the rays from the sun fill the Bermudiana Hotel's empty kitchen.

DRY POOL -- The sun shines over the parched Bermudiana Hotel swimming pool.

HONEYMOON MEMORIES -- An old moongate in the grounds of the Bermudiana Hotel is almost obscured by overgrown bushes.

FALLEN FINERY -- The ballroom chandelier lies rusted and twisted on the ground between metal beams exposed by fire.

IN RUINS-- The derelict Bermudiana Hotel lies mostly in ruins, ready for the demolition man's ball and chain. A bathroom stands empty, the tub pulled out from the wall (left), a wing of the hotel is little more than a skeleton (centre) and empty safe deposit boxes in the hotel's reception area are a reminder of a busier time.