ANZEIGE
Nach dreijähriger Renovation eröffnet am Wochenende in London das berühmte SAVOY, gemanagt von der kanadischen Fairmount Group, wieder seine Pforten. Preise pro Nacht von $560 bis $16,000 fuer die Royal Suite.
'The Savoy Hotel has more ghosts than most, and many of them may be hanging around this weekend to see the grand old lady’s new face. In October, 2002, long-time hotel resident and certified roustabout Richard Harris, dying of heart failure, was carried through the lobby on a stretcher, stirring himself long enough to call to the hotel’s other patrons: “It was the food!”
At that point, London’s dowager hotel was, if not quite as decrepit as Harris, badly in need of some restorative surgery. It was coasting on the fumes of an illustrious past, when movie stars and the occasional leopard walked its halls, and Winston Churchill held cabinet meetings in the dining room: “We had a building that was innately beautiful,’’ says Savoy general manager Kiaran MacDonald, “but it was very tired and run down.’’
This Sunday, after a painfully drawn-out and overbudget refurbishment, the Savoy will take off its bandages. It is a transformation that cost twice as much ($356-million) and took twice as long (almost three years) as predicted. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel – although that may just be the reflection from $56,000 worth of gold leaf in the Beaufort Bar.
A tour of the hotel 10 days before it reopened revealed a contained frenzy of activity: Painters touched up the edges of doors with minuscule paintbrushes, electricians huddled at the elevators – the Savoy, when it was opened by impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte in 1889, was the first hotel in London to have electric lifts, then charmingly called “ascending rooms.” A pair of brothers have spent two years French-polishing every piece of wood in the 268 rooms. Interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, who previously tarted up the Georges V hotel in Paris, is wandering about, casting an anxious eye over every detail, from the rounded door numbers in the art-deco wing to the ornate plasterwork of the Edwardian rooms.
Weiter hier...
Sprucing up London's Savoy Hotel - The Globe and Mail
Hier zur neu gestalteten Webseite ...
The Savoy, Managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
'The Savoy Hotel has more ghosts than most, and many of them may be hanging around this weekend to see the grand old lady’s new face. In October, 2002, long-time hotel resident and certified roustabout Richard Harris, dying of heart failure, was carried through the lobby on a stretcher, stirring himself long enough to call to the hotel’s other patrons: “It was the food!”
At that point, London’s dowager hotel was, if not quite as decrepit as Harris, badly in need of some restorative surgery. It was coasting on the fumes of an illustrious past, when movie stars and the occasional leopard walked its halls, and Winston Churchill held cabinet meetings in the dining room: “We had a building that was innately beautiful,’’ says Savoy general manager Kiaran MacDonald, “but it was very tired and run down.’’
This Sunday, after a painfully drawn-out and overbudget refurbishment, the Savoy will take off its bandages. It is a transformation that cost twice as much ($356-million) and took twice as long (almost three years) as predicted. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel – although that may just be the reflection from $56,000 worth of gold leaf in the Beaufort Bar.
A tour of the hotel 10 days before it reopened revealed a contained frenzy of activity: Painters touched up the edges of doors with minuscule paintbrushes, electricians huddled at the elevators – the Savoy, when it was opened by impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte in 1889, was the first hotel in London to have electric lifts, then charmingly called “ascending rooms.” A pair of brothers have spent two years French-polishing every piece of wood in the 268 rooms. Interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, who previously tarted up the Georges V hotel in Paris, is wandering about, casting an anxious eye over every detail, from the rounded door numbers in the art-deco wing to the ornate plasterwork of the Edwardian rooms.
Weiter hier...
Sprucing up London's Savoy Hotel - The Globe and Mail
Hier zur neu gestalteten Webseite ...
The Savoy, Managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
