18 - The Long Wait 1997

RITZ  HOTEL, Madrid

 

The Goya Restaurant 1997

     My brother worked for a brief time for the billionaire buyout king Henry Kravis and his socially motivated new bride, Marie-Josée.   His well paid job was that of  preparing food on their private jet, much of which was discarded at the end of each flight.  It didn’t work out for very long, but while it did, Dickie had an intriguing view of life at the top.  In the few months he was with them, they seemed to travel just about everywhere.

Dickie, the in-between years

  While in Madrid, he discovered the Ritz.   He told me about an old Spanish woman he had observed in the hotel’s elegant Goya Restaurant, and to look out for her as an interesting anecdoctal bit of Ritz folklore.  I was not disappointed.

It turned out that she lived next door and she lunched there most days, usually  wearing the same worn and long-outdated leopard coat.

Luis, the chatty maitre d’hotel, said she was 92 and occasionally travelled to Switzerland (“probably looking for a miracle fountain of youth cure,” he volunteered).

Luis 1997

Some days she would be delightful, other days quite the contrary.  A week earlier he had asked how she was.  Her reply was chilling:  “This is not a hospital.  You needn’t concern yourself with how I am.  I come here to eat, not to answer your questions.”

On the particular afternoon I first saw her, however, she was exceedingly friendly, and the staff was falling over itself to be in her good graces.  It was the week before Christmas, but despite the season, she ordered homemade vanilla ice cream.  I remember, because I ordered it, too, and it was delicious.   Elvis Presley was singing "Blue Christmas" in the distance, and I wondered if it made her melancoly or if she understood the words.

On another occasion her son had joined her for the Sunday buffet.   I was told he accompanied her once a week.  As was the case this time, he often brought papers for her to sign, and they didn't always find her favor.  I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and wouldn’t have understood the language anyway, but her tone was unmistakably impatient and demanding.  As my little granddaughter once said of someone, "Her voice was not kind."

Clearly, relationships were not her strong point.

The son, a little scruffy and none too young, himself, seemed rather lost.  He impressed me as someone in the process of waiting.

The wait has now certainly ended, and if the dowager’s son is still alive, his life is no doubt rather more comfortable today.

The Ritz, Madrid

SIDEBAR --CESAR RITZ (1850 - 1918)

César and Marie-Louise Ritz circa 1890

       César Ritz, founder of the hotel that made his name an instantly recognizable synonym for elegance and luxury, was born into an exceedingly modest family in a Swiss mountain village that would have made my Aberdeen look citified.  He spent his childhood tending goats alongside twelve siblings, and in 1863 at age 13 was sent to do an apprenticeship to become a waiter.  

 Summarily dismissed after a trial period, he later remembered his first boss telling him he need never expect to find success working in a hotel.  “To become  a hotelier, you need a special talent and flair,” he was told. “and you have neither!"

Undeterred by such an inauspicious career debut, he soon worked his way to Paris, and from waiter and dish washer in a working class brasserie to general manager of any number of fine hotels in Switzerland, Italy, Monaco and London.  And all this before he was 30! 

Hotel Ritz Paris 2009

 

Of his own name-bearing hotels, there were only three –first and foremost the Paris landmark in 1898, then London, finally Madrid.  No others were ever real Ritz Hotels, at least not created by the founder himself.

He saw the completion of his life-long dream with the opening of the Paris Ritz.  By that time he was already famous on both sides of the Atlantic, and some clever publicist had coined the moniker “hotelier to kings, king of hoteliers,” which stuck.  He is reputed to have invented the motto “The customer is always right ” while managing the Savoy Hotel in London.

The London Ritz 2012

Ritz was a workaholic before the term existed, and he suffered from what was then called a nervous collapse during the building of his London hotel.  He remained nominally head of the Ritz empire, but he never really recovered, and had little control after the early years of the century.  Marie-Louise, his wife and an astute manager herself, increasingly took over the day-to-day running of the Paris hotel

Approached by King Alfonso of Spain about building a similarly prestigious hotel in Madrid, Ritz agreed to a kind of consultancy.  With declining health ever more incapacitating, he continued to participate in the Spanish project until its completion in 1910, but never took an active part in its management.

Ritz died in 1918 after more than a decade of ill health.  His widow, Marie-Louise, was still living at the Paris Ritz when she died in 1961 at age 93.

The main foyer, The Madrid Ritz  (photo Orient Express)

 

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

Next Friday:  "The best and the worst" AND "The Movie List"

  [Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The (Paris) Ritz Hotel is also featured in blog No. 25, "The Importance of a morning suit" Feb. 22, 2013 (to access, click on above title).