Entries tagged with: London

Hilton, Conrad Nicholson PERSONALITIES

Hilton, Conrad Nicholson

Conrad Nicholson Hilton, (1887-1979), born in 1887 in San Antonio, New Mexico, was an American entrepreneur. As a young boy, Hilton developed entrepreneurial skills working at his father’s general store in Socorro County, New Mexico. This was f...

Read More
Kitchen Revolt at The Savoy: 16 fiery cooks took their long knives Andreas Augustin

Kitchen Revolt at The Savoy: 16 fiery cooks took their long knives

On 8 March 1898, The Star (London) wrote: ‘During the last 24-hours The Savoy Hotel has been the scene of disturbances which in a South American Republic would be dignified by the name of revolution. Three managers have been dismissed and 16 f...

Read More
Langham London: Antonín Dvorák’s Breakfast Adrian Mourby

Langham London: Antonín Dvorák’s Breakfast

"Why seek far afield when the good is close by?" Contributing Editor Adrian Mourby knows where to breakfast. The monumental Langham Hotel has dominated the south end of Portland Place since its completion in 1865. The hotel’s very height triu...

Read More
LONDON: Mourby of St Pancras Adrian Mourby

LONDON: Mourby of St Pancras

HOTEL: ST PANCRAS RENNAISSANCE LONDON ROOMS WE LIKE: OVERLOOKING THE STATION PLATFORMS ARCHITECT: George Gilbert Scott OPENED: 1873  Like most people I like to think of myself as reasonably tolerant. I believe that even the most pernicious...

Read More
Mourby of Books Adrian Mourby

Mourby of Books

Two books by Adrian Mourby should interest all hotel aficionados:   Rooms of One's Own — 50 Places That Made Literary History Writers' relationships with their surroundings are seldom straightforward. While some, like Jan...

Read More
Mourby of Landmarks Adrian Mourby

Mourby of Landmarks

In the late Victorian period, north London was like a series of launchpads. A string of great railway stations stretched in an almost straight line from Paddington in the west to King’s Cross in the east. Euston was here, as was St Pancras and...

Read More
Mourby to Tango Adrian Mourby

Mourby to Tango

London’s Waldorf Hilton is very proud of its claim to have introduced the tango to Great Britain in 1910, two years after William Waldorf Astor (cousin of John Jacob Astor IV) opened his Waldorf Hotel on Aldwych. The Waldorf cousins competed ac...

Read More
Mourby’s Trafalgar Adrian Mourby

Mourby’s Trafalgar

If you want to know where the beating heart of England can be found, then Trafalgar Square a good place to start. When World War II ended, thousands of people crammed into this world-famous piazza below the National Gallery and danced round its fount...

Read More
The Corinthia London — the good old Metropole Adrian Mourby

The Corinthia London — the good old Metropole

THE CORINTHIA, LONDON In 2012 a glamorous five-star hotel opened near to London’s Trafalgar Square. However, this was no new hotel. Not at all, just one that had been missing for decades. Unlike many of today's central London hotels, it wa...

Read More
The Dorchester - revisited Adrian Mourby

The Dorchester - revisited

The Dorchester is quirky, eclectic and very British. It sits like a section of some 1930s luxury liner plonked down on Park Lane. No two bedrooms the same. Scots warriors, clad in tartan, are stencilled on to the walls of the Grill. The Orchid Room w...

Read More
The Great César — Life and Times of César Ritz PERSONALITIES

The Great César — Life and Times of César Ritz

CÉSAR RITZ César Ritz*, born in the Swiss village of Niederwald (Switzerland) on 23 February 1850, died in Küssnacht (Switzerland) on 26 October 1918. César Ritz started his hotel career at the age of 15 in S...

Read More
THE NEXT STEP Andreas Augustin

THE NEXT STEP

Dear Friends of The Most Famous Hotels in the World; How do our hotels survive the current crises? I want you to meet the innovative managers and to learn how they cope with this unprecedented situation. I will introduce you...

Read More
The Savoy London - the making of The Making Of Books

The Savoy London - the making of

Mr Ritz, You are Fired! Andreas Augustin   In 2000, Michael Shepherd, General Manager of The Savoy at the time, was sitting on a very old history book about The Savoy. It had been written by Stanley Jackson in 1964. He knew that we update ou...

Read More
Tichowana - A Tale of Two Bush Babies — by Roddy Martine BOOKS REVIEWED

Tichowana - A Tale of Two Bush Babies — by Roddy Martine

Roddy Martine, our coauthor on the story about the fabled icon of Scottish hospitality, the Caledonian in Edinburgh, a Waldorf Astoria collection hotel, appears again in the limelight with a wonderful tale of two bush babies, in fact subtitled a "T...

Read More
Writers at Hotels: Oscar Wilde PERSONALITIES

Writers at Hotels: Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Oscar Wilde was an old comrade-in-arms of the British operetta writers Gilbert and Sullivan (their impressario Richard D’Oyly Carte had organised Wilde’s 1881 lecture tour of the USA). Sullivan was a shareho...

Read More

Most Popular

Savoy (Baur en Ville)

Savoy (Baur en Ville)

This is Zurich's oldest grand hotel. When it opened on December 24, 1838, it marked a milestone in the history of the hotel industry. In...Read More

Grand Hotel Lviv (Lemberg)

Grand Hotel Lviv (Lemberg)

Grand Hotel Lviv in 1894 Lviv or Lemberg can be metaphorically described as the westernmost city in Eastern Europe or the easternmost city in...Read More

Bergues, Des

Bergues, Des

In our world, it is no longer a given that simple restraint represents true elegance. To be recognized as one of the oldest purpose-built Grand...Read More

Le Royal

Le Royal

In 1923/24, the construction of a 55-room hotel in Phnom Penh was proposed. Architect Ernest Hébrard, who was largely responsible for...Read More

The Mandarin Oriental Bangkok

The Mandarin Oriental Bangkok

Since decades “The Oriental”, as it is affectionately known by travellers from all over the globe, leads the lists of all...Read More