39 - Living It Up On Park Lane!

THE DORCHESTER, London

A taste of luxury, Park Suite at the Dorchester

       I renewed a long-distance acquaintanceship last year with Christopher Cowdray after writing of him in this blog ("A Momentous Long-Distance Phone Call").  We have exchanged letters, communicated on the telephone, and chatted via email, but never actually come face to face.  

In the intervening years since the episode recounted in that musing, Cowdray has gone from managing director of Claridge's to becoming CEO of the Dorchester Collection.  He is in essence now at the helm of a veritable empire of international grand hotels.  And not just any old grand hotel.  

The Collection includes the absolute crème de la crème of international properties from Paris to Milan to Beverly Hills, not to mention England.
 

The Promenade lobby, a London landmark

A congruence of circumstances resulted in an invitation last month to spend a few days at The Dorchester, the Collection's namesake and prize London property.  

Mendez circa 1968 (Google)

   The Dorchester was the only luxury hotel I ever remember entering during the two years I lived in London at the end of the 1960’s.  Once was for a press party given by Sergio Mendez to announce a new album.  Of course few remember Mendez now, but at the time he was a hot commodity in the record world (that is, “record” as in victrola or hi-fi, for any of you who may be under 40).

The other time was to pick up a press release from a Middle Eastern political lobbyist. I recall his suite being of great luxury,  but somehow never connected it with anything that actually touched me or the real world.  I accepted his champagne and petits fours, but the political implications were entirely over my head, and I never wrote about it.

 I was aware that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were living at the “Dorch” that year, but again, there was their world, and then there was the real world. 

Opened in 1931, ultra modern at the time, the birth of the Dorchester oddly coincided with that of the Great Depression which had taken a couple of years before arriving in full force in the United Kingdom.  

Because of its reinforced concrete foundation,

Ike 1944 (Historiweb)

uncommon for its time, it was considered one of the safest large buildings --certainly the safest hotel-- in London during the War.  General Eisenhower, who had first stayed at the Savoy, later moved and took up residence at the Dorchester.

In the last few years, The Dorchester has been discreetly reinventing itself.  It has undergone extensive renovations, rooms have been redone and redecorated, and most suites have been completely re-thought and transformed.  It stands proudly today at the top of its form.  

As we set off to catch the Eurostar for the 2 1/2 hour train journey to London, Brenda had her heart set on a view of Hyde Park.  I warned her that this was unlikely, as only the most expensive rooms seemed to be on the Park side.  We had been just slightly let down last year by our digs at the Savoy, and we promised ourselves not to be disappointed if the accommodations were on the small side.

They were not.

The lovely Katarina

Imagine our enchantment when the glamorous Katarina, a "guest liaison manager", threw open the doors of the Park Suite for us.   One of the hotel's most elegant apartments, I would have almost settled for just its foyer with its handsome black and white marble floor and distinctive Japanese-style wallpaper.

The stunning foyer of our suite

 Entirely redone last year, Katarina confided it was her favorite suite.  I was thoroughly conquered when she said that all my questions reminded her of herself, as she, too, shared a longstanding passion for hotels.  

A native of Slovakia, she first worked in London at the smaller, elitist Connaught Hotel, before moving to The Dorchester.  She undoubtedly has discovered a very special world in the once-closed milieu of English palaces.

And as for the panorama, Brenda need not have worried.  Even the toilet (there were two!) had a fine view of Park Lane and Hyde Park.  

Our rooms, like much of the hotel, have maintained a strong feeling of the English traditional, subtly revisited by a touch of pan-Asian decor and more than a little art-déco.  The Dorch has somehow found the secret to being old-fashioned and modern at the same time.  

The last morning, I awakened at daybreak to just a hint of sunlight peeking through the curtains, and I savored the beauty of the bedroom's exquisite silver and gray damask wallpaper.  A detail among so many.  

Preparing to leave, I felt a sudden sadness.  Would this be my swan song to Gatsbyesque living?  I do hope not.  But if so, I couldn't have found a better finale.  How could I ever top it? 

Brenda getting used to the luxurious bed linen and all those wonderful down-filled pillows

 SNAPSHOTS:  A few days at the Dorchester

An array of homemade chocolates awaiting us our first afternoon

A loo with a view

Lizzie brings even more beautiful white roses

Miguel sees to the champagne

Paul, Head butler

Breakfast "at home"

Traditional English breakfast in the Grill

Late night at the Concierge Desk

Entryway to a bona fide grand hotel

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "The Paris Riots of 1968 at l'Hotel de Lille"

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Christopher Cowdray was also featured in blog No. 16, "A Momentous Long-Distance Call" Dec. 12, 2012 (to access, click on above title).

38 - En Route to Miami with the Farrells 1955

THE FONTAINEBLEAU, Miami Beach

The Fontainebleau Hotel, the early years (Library of Congress)

The same year of my first trip to New York with Aunt Frances, I traveled to Florida with the Farrell family.

Graham was my best friend in grammar school, and he often accompanied us to the Carthage Hotel for Sunday lunch (see Musing N° 2 of Sept. 7, 2012).   In fact, it was he who first mutilated those plastic table coverings.  Alternatively, I was regularly invited after church for fried chicken with the Farrells on Poplar Street.

In February or March of 1955 the Farrells --Cecil, Catherine and Graham-- planned their annual drive to Miami, and after a great deal of cajoling of both families by Graham and me, I was finally included in the trip.

It seems odd that I would have been able to miss so much school, but times were different, and I do remember my mother speaking with Mrs. Funderburk, my seventh grade teacher, who enthusiastically encouraged her to let me go.

I think we took three days to drive down.  I had been looking forward to staying at motels, but Graham’s parents would inevitably have an argument about the price, and we’d end up staying in a private home with rooms for rent. 

St Augustine, America's oldest city, vintage postcard

 I recall a particularly heated discussion, arriving in Saint Augustine, where there were scores of really snazzy motels as we entered the city.  Graham and I were jumping up and down in the back seat, shouting to stop at each one we saw, particularly those with swimming pools.  

Catherine was usually on our side, but we didn't stand a chance. Cecil definitely held the purse strings, and none of the prices suited.  In those days (perhaps it hasn’t changed), the room rate at U.S. motels was posted under the neon signs, and they were inevitably deemed too expensive.   Even at that age, I was surprised that no hotels had been reserved in advance.   

Me in Parrot Jungle, Miami (photo Graham Farrell)

Once in Miami, we spent much of the first day looking for a place to stay, scouting out rooming houses of which there were an abundance in the 1950’s.   We finally found one, and it seemed perfect to me, but I was still disappointed we hadn’t chosen a real hotel. 

  Graham's father was not a big traveller, but he had a special  affection for Miami, and driving through the countryside, Cecil talked to us at length about the Fontainebleau.   We were mesmerized, listening to his description of this super-modern hotel of inventive, circular architecture which he said was the finest and most expensive hotel in the world.  It had had its grand opening just a few months earlier.

One of the highlights of our trip was to be a visit to the Fontainebleau, but as I don’t actually remember anything about it, I suspect we only saw it from the outside.  I don't much imagine that back in those days it would have occurred to any of us to just march inside.

After a brilliantly successful first decade when it was embraced by show business stars and featured in numerous films and television specials, The Fontainebleau was not always able to maintain its prestige.  For a number of years, it fell, along with most of the rest of Miami Beach, on seriously hard times.  Rival Colombian and Cuban drug lords took over large suites to carry out their business, and several were arrested in the hotel in highly publicized crackdowns during the 1970's.

The Fontainebleau declared bankruptcy in 1977, but never completely shut down.  By 2006, most of the hotel's rooms were closed, and their furniture put up for auction.  Repeatedly rising from its ashes, however, the old Miami landmark reinvented itself under new ownership, and expanded, enlarged and completely redid itself in a flashy rebirth in 2008.

I have wonderful childhood memories of that week in 1955 with the Farrell family, but it is as though they end in Miami.  I have no recollection of the long drive back to Aberdeen.  Childhood was drawing to a close, and I don't think there were any more Sunday lunches at the Farrells after that trip.  In fact, I don't specifically recall going there again until the late 1960's when Cecil died, or much later when I once visited with Catherine during a trip home from Paris.  

When Brenda and I stopped over at the Winterhaven Hotel in 2011 on our way back to France from Panama, I looked forward to a visit to the Fontainebleau ... just to see what it had become.

Crowded Fontainebleau pool today (photo Buenno)

What a disappointment!   Outside, it still had its unique architecture intact, but inside it looked much like a big city train station and just as impersonal.   With over 1500 rooms (!) and 12 restaurants, it embodied everything bad that you hear about Las Vegas …. or Miami hotels:  too big, too cold, too loud, too glitzy, too crowded!   On the plus side, we did eat a very nice hamburger there. 

Whatever it once may have been, at least in my eyes, The Fontainebleau is no longer.

SIDEBAR:  The Winterhaven

The Winterhaven Hotel 1945, as seen in vintage postcard

The Winterhaven is quite another story.  In fact, it would be accurate to describe it as pretty much the opposite of the Fontainebleau:  simple, attractive, and inexpensive. 

I discovered the Winterhaven in Miami Beach in 2003.  My father had been seriously ill and hospitalized for some weeks; he had recently returned home, and I was on my way to Aberdeen to see him.

I no longer remember by what fluke I found my route from Paris to North Carolina via Florida.   I had re-discovered Miami a few years earlier, and the Winterhaven had then been recommended as an inexpensive old hotel of a certain charm overlooking the ocean at the northern tip of South Beach.  

It is considered to be part of Miami Beach’s special art-deco architecture, though for purists, the Winterhaven like most of the others is a little late and more of a post-art deco, at least by European standards. 

Built in 1939, it has very pure lines.  It appears to have weathered the decades with grace, though I understand it was in a pretty dismal state by the 1980’s.    Like so many sea-front hotels there, most of the outside is white stucco, and it has enjoyed the revival of Miami Beach in the last decade or so.   Brenda and I recently  ran across an old picture book of art-deco architecture with a nice 1945 illustration of the Winterhaven (see photo).   

Unfortunately, I have a particularly sad association with The Winterhaven, as it was here just before leaving for Aberdeen in 2003, that I was informed of the death of my father.    Although I had enjoyed my stay, it left me --though of course through no fault of the hotel's-- with ambiguous memories.

I didn’t ever expect to have an occasion to return, but when Brenda and I decided to stay a couple of nights in Miami in 2011, it seemed an appealing choice to go back to.   It was almost as if I had a family connection there.  



The Winterhaven today (Photo Brenda P.)

  

AVA GARDNER STOPS IN ABERDEEN

Vintage Ava (MGM photo)

Few celebrities made their way to Aberdeen.  Eleanor Roosevelt passed through fleetingly the year  before I was born, and I once posed with my boy scout troop alongside Adlai Stevenson at Styers’ Filling Station during one of his unsuccessful presidential bids.

With Adlai Stevenson, me bottom right (photo Sandhill Citizen)

Townspeople did once get a peek of Ava Gardner, though I may be the only one left to tell the tale, admittedly second hand.  It was recounted to me and Graham during that road trip to Miami.  It was a tiny story of little consequence, but it fascinated us children, as Ava Gardner seemed like the biggest movie star in the world back in 1955.  [Cecil would undoubtedly be pleased to know that I have never forgotten it.]

Cecil Farrell had been a member of a local business owners' association during the Second World War.  Ava Gardner, as everyone may not know, grew up in a little hamlet a couple of hours away from Aberdeen, called Grabtown. 

With Rooney 1942 (MGM)

Cecil had been tipped off by a railroad official that Ava Gardner would be on the southbound train on a certain day, and that her train would actually be stopping, however briefly, in Aberdeen.

It had been her first visit back to North Carolina after marrying Mickey Rooney, and even though she had yet to make an important film appearance, the trip coincided with the considerable media attention she was receiving as an MGM starlet.

She, too, was on her way to Miami, before making the five-day train journey west back to Los Angeles.  

Cecil, along with other members of the Aberdeen business group, prepared to greet the North Carolina “girl-made-good” with a few words of welcome.  They were accompanied by several members of the high school band.

When the train pulled into Union Station, the delegation got a close look at the young Ava who was looking curiously out the window of her private drawing room.

Cecil said the band launched into a hearty rendition of “California Here I Come”, and he tried to motion for the actress to open her window before delivering his few words of welcome..

Ava Gardner looked at the unexpected welcoming committee,  made a little grimace, probably at the noise; and then, with not so much as a smile, she pulled down the shade. 

“And that was the last anyone in Aberdeen ever saw of Ava Gardner in the flesh,” Cecil concluded with a chuckle, and Catherine, who had heard the story many times, joined Graham and me in much laughter.



Aberdeen's Union Station at the turn of the century, unchanged today (Malcolm Blue Historical Society photo)

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Living It Up At The Dorchester"

  [Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

My first trip to New York with Aunt Frances was featured in blog No. 4, "A Two-Dollar Hamburger Under a Silvery Dome" Dec. 21, 2012, and blog No. 2 "Sunday Lunch with Grandmother Pleasants and Mrs. Kennedy" Sept. 7, 2012 (to access, click on title).

37 - The Decline of Madame Augier

THE NEGRESCO, Nice, France

Negresco proprietor Jeanne Augier, three years ago (Le Point photo)

     Jeanne Augier turned 90 this year, and 2013 marks the 100^th birthday of her prize possession, Nice’s Negresco Hotel.

Madame Augier’s presence these last 55 years has always given the Negresco a certain, extra panache.  Her red hair and horn-rimmed glasses have been as much a trademark of the Riviera palace as its distinctive pink dome and art-nouveau entryway.

I first saw her when I stayed there over Christmas of 1982.  She was rushing through the lobby, giving instructions to one of the hotel’s managers, and there was no mistaking who was in charge.

She has always had the last say in all decorating matters, and one of her eccentricities was to pepper the lobby with portraits … of Jeanne Augier!   In addition to paintings of herself, Madame Augier owns an interesting, oddly eclectic collection of art and art objects which is an integral part of the hotel’s decoration.

 

Nikki de Saint Phalle sculpture in main lobby

The spectacular Baccarat crystal chandelier (above photo) in the Royal Lounge was commissioned by Czar Nicholas II, who was unable to take delivery due to the Russian Revolution.   The emblematic verrière (glass roof) is set in a frame designed by Gustave Eiffel.

 Jeanne with Papa vacationing in Nice circa 1933 (Negresco)

Jeanne Augier was an only child, and her father, a self-made millionaire, adored her.  So much so that in 1957 he bought the Negresco for her and her late husband.  It was then not at the top of its form, but the Augiers transformed it into one of France’s most prestigious and best known hotels, consistently attracting heads of state, royal families and assorted film and theatre luminaries for the past six decades. 

In the hotel dining room 50 years ago (Negresco Collection)

When I began returning with Brenda to Nice in 2007, we frequently elected for the Negresco’s Sunday luncheon, an excellent and elegant meal for a bargain price proposed by the Chantecler’s star chef Jean-Denis Rieubland. 

Mme Augier was invariably there at her special little table, usually alone.  She would arrive with her own napkin, and on a number of occasions we observed her putting bits and pieces of lunch into her pocket book.

At a restaurant as elegant as the Chantecler you wouldn’t generally think of asking for a doggy bag, and for the owner it did seem odd to be spiralling away food.  Particularly since she lives in a vast apartment on the top floor of the hotel, and could surely have the kitchen whip up anything she wished at any hour.

 For many years she had a tall, Senegalese butler who seemed to be making it possible for her to slip into old age unobtrusively.  He was omnipresent; everyone knew his face and silhouette in Nice.

Annie and Punjab

Despite the Negresco owner’s advancing years, the sight of her with the imposing butler brought to mind Little Orphan Annie and her faithful Punjab!

Staff worried what would happen to this seemingly devoted domestic if Mme Augier were to go meet her maker, whether he would be generously remembered or not.

They needn’t have bothered, because it was the butler who unexpectedly dropped dead of a heart attack several years ago.  Mme Augier, already well over 80, must have been destabilized by the loss.  But she soon picked herself up and replaced him with the butler’s young neice.

Brenda in the Salon Versailles, 2010

In the last year or so, I haven’t seen much of Mme A.  Her restaurant table is usually empty. 

Then just a few weeks ago,  on the eve of her 90^th birthday, the news hit Nice like a bombshell.  Madame Augier, “suffering from little memory losses” and confined to a wheelchair, had been placed under a judicial guardianship.  At the same time the local courts have appointed a separate guardian to oversee the running of the hotel.

Rumors were rife.  Newspapers speculated on stolen jewels, missing stocks and various shenanigans involving unscrupulous personnel taking advantage of the elderly Negresco owner.  Police were notified by her priest who was reportedly witness to certain “abuses.”

“It’s like swimming in the middle of an Agatha Christie mystery,” the hotel’s managing director recently told the newspaper Nice Matin.

Jeanne Augier has always been a very independent lady with a --shall we say-- strong personality.   One anonymous hotel employee went so far as to tell the Agence France Press that his employer was often “stubborn as a mule …. and not always appreciated by all.”

Business goes on these days almost as usual at the Negresco.  Police have announced the investigation “will take the time it takes.”  The judicial administrator has begun the massive task of studying the hotel’s and Mme Augier’s accounts for the last two years, as well as overseeing the day-to-day running of the hotel.  The Negresco lost over 1.3 million dollars last year.  

Wheelchair bound, Mme Augier remains an imposing figure (Pure-people photo)

For the moment, no one knows what the future holds for the Nice landmark or for its 176 employees.  The only thing for sure is that things will never be quite like before, neither for Jeanne Augier nor for her hotel.

Negresco by night 2012

input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Driving to Miami with the Farrells"

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The Negresco was also featured in blog No. 17, "Celebrating the Holidays Away From Home" Dec. 21, 2012 (to access, click on highlighted title).

36 - The Good and the Bad…a New Kind of Hotel

AKA SUTTON PLACE,  New York City

AKA's intimate lobby, Michael clowning in the distance

Our first contact with AKA was catastrophic.  Already irritable and exhausted after a difficult flight from Paris, we discovered on arrival at the Sutton Place “hotel alternative” that our reservations had been cancelled.

On the good side, the staff was --from the very first moment-- impeccably friendly and whatever the problem (and there have indeed been a few), systematically in search of the best solution.  When we located our own copy of the booking confirmation, things began to quickly work themselves out.

The young man responsible for accidentally destroying our reservations was clearly humiliated and devastated by the public outing of his inefficiency.   I felt sorry for him, and it was soon apparent the incident was apt to bring us future good will, which I always welcome.   

By mid-week, we were thoroughly won over, thrilled with the overall luxury of the surroundings, and of the terrific interaction with the staff.  The entire concierge desk seem to absolutely love its work.  To a man (or woman), they take enormous pleasure in chatting with guests, and generally rendering themselves helpful whenever possible.

One evening  we did have a key problem.   We had been given the wrong key, and it took quite a lot of effort on everyone’s part before figuring out why the key no longer fit our apartment.   It was no big deal, but still kind of a bad omen.

Then, the following day, after some pretty heavy walking, including a fairly long hike across the Brooklyn Bridge, Brenda returned to our apartment alone.  I had some errands to do in the neighborhood. 

Manhattan seen from the Brooklyn Bridge

 Back at the hotel, one of the staff warned me there had been a “bit of a problem,” but assured me all been taken care of.   He didn’t wish to elaborate, and I was more than intrigued.  

Brenda met me at the door. She was laughing and almost crying at the same time.  The adventure she recounted was not banal:   Back in our apartment a few minutes earlier, she had started undressing to take a shower, and as she sat on the bed to remove her shoes, just like in the tale of Goldilocks and the three bears, she suddenly realized someone was asleep on our bed.   

Mrs. Singh

 It turned out to be a charming Indian lady, who had travelled just that day from New Delhi to attend the graduation of her nephew at New York University.  Brenda and Mrs. Singh were mutually flabbergasted.   They both had a momentary fright, a bit of an embarrassing moment, and ultimately a laugh, too.

The extended family of Mrs. Singh occupied the two next door apartments, and the downstairs clerk had inadvertently given the jet-lagged Mrs. Singh the wrong key --ours.   Of course there was no real harm done, but it certainly didn’t look very serious on the part of the hotel.

Nevertheless, there was a silver lining:   the management, thoroughly contrite, insisted on refunding a night’s lodging, which was more or less the maximum one might expect under such circumstances and a welcome economy to our New York budget. The rest of our stay went off without a hitch. 

There is a superb postscript to this story, as the best was yet to come.  Returning in 2010, I figured with all of our mishaps of the previous year, we might hope to get a special welcome.  That was not immediately in the cards.  We were ushered into a tiny, very dark apartment, clearly in need of repairs, and told with a straight face it was one of their most popular.

 When I objected, my interlocutor --as always-- showed plenty of good will in finding a solution.  Michael was a young, very personable New Yorker.  He took me aside and whispered that he remembered last year’s regrettable incident with Mrs. Singh, that if I could just wait 24 hours longer, the penthouse suite would become available, and we would be welcome to move in.  Needless to say, at no additional cost.

We waited the 24 hours, and our expectations were all surpassed.  It was at least 1000 square feet surrounded by panoramic windowing with stunning views of the city skyscape.   Cary Grant would have felt right at home. 

Brenda puttering about in the early morning

So there you are.  AKA has never been quite perfect, but it’s all a bit of give and take, and in our experience the give and the take have balanced themselves out rather nicely.

Room with a real New York view !

 SIDEBAR:  Sutton Place

Queensboro Bridge seen from Sutton Place Park 2010

Hollywood has long perpetuated the image of New York City’s Sutton Place as the very epitome of chic.

Onassis (Google photo)

Crawford (Warners)

 Film notables, including Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe, made their real life homes on Sutton Place.  Other residents have included Aristotle Onassis, Michael Jackson and Sigourney Weaver, to name but a few. 


Several scenes from both Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall” were filmed there, as well as exteriors in the original “Manchurian Candidate” and the remake of “Scarface.”

 Hollywood most memorably captured the neighborhood in “How to Marry a Millionaire,” the story of three almost penniless glamor girls who pool their resources to rent a luxury apartment for one month with the goal of nabbing rich husbands. 

Billed as the first comedy in Cinemascope, I wanted to see it as part of my 11^th birthday party, but my mother insisted that the children vote;  I had to go to “King Solomon’s Mines” instead.

Vintage movie poster (20th Century Fox)

 

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

Next Friday:  "The Decline of Mme Augier ... goings-on at the Negresco"

  [Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]