46 - Grandmother Vivian, Doc and the others

THE HENRY GRADY HOTEL, Atlanta

Early Viv

      There’s no doubt about it, my Grandmother Vivian was a better grandmother than she was a mother.

     My grandfather, her first husband, was much older; he had met her while staying at her mother’s boarding house in southwest Georgia.   The family home, which sat smack in the middle of the little town of Cuthbert, bore no real similarity to any kind of mainstream hotel, other than the premise was the same.   Rooms were for rent, as attested a large, ugly sign stuck into the front yard, simply stating, "ROOMS." 

      I never knew my grandfather, as he died before I was born. Actually, I never heard much about him.   He was a medicine man.  

    
     Vivian traveled much of the time with her medicine-man husband, leaving most of the early rearing of my mother to my great-grandmother, Mama Woods.   I don’t think Vivian had any active participation in the “business,” but one of her brothers, who later became something of a small town tycoon in Lamar, South Carolina, travelled with them for awhile performing the "buck and wing", a specialized tap dance, from the back of their truck.

Doc, long before he met Vivian

     I suppose that people don’t really know what a medicine man is any longer.  It hasn’t much existed for the last 100 years or so. By the time my grandfather met Vivian it was already on the way out, as professions go.  He was an entertainer of sorts.  He organized a travelling show which would go through small, mainly southern towns to attract a crowd to which miraculous patent medicines, remedies for various ailments, would be proposed.   

     Everyone, including my mother, called him Doc, though needless to say, he was not a doctor, and the whole concept of hawking medicinal cure-alls, even in those more innocent times, was most often associated with charlatans and other unsavory characters.

     They usually made little money, but there were also flush times, and when the money did come in, they inevitably spent it quickly and extravagantly.  This was recounted to me by my mother and other members of the family as a warning of how not to handle your life and manage your money.  But I always looked at their lifestyle as a little bit glamorous, although it would have been fairly impossible to describe Vivian as ever having the remotest aura of glamour.

Mother, Sweet Sixteen

  My mother always felt left out of her own mother’s life, and although Vivian tried hard in later years to find her good graces, it was usually a losing battle. 

Mother tended to resent the fact that my brothers and I had such affection for her.   Whenever she’d come to visit, Vivian (or Bibby, as Mickie and Dickie called her) would always bring a big bag of corn candy, which was about the cheapest children’s confection you could pick up at any dime store.  We loved it, and whooped for joy when Vivien pulled it out of her bag.  Mother would sometimes remark what a shame that she had again forgotten to get a “real” gift for her grandchildren.  

Mickie (left) and Dickie with Vivian, Southern Pines 1961 

     In the last year of her life, when she was dying of cancer, Mother confided to me in an atypical moment of candor, that she still cringed when remembering how --growing up with her grandmother-- some of the girls at school taunted her with the epithet “Medicine Girl! Medicine Girl!”  Even though it would have been unfair to blame Vivian for these childhood memories, she never really forgave her.

     Vivian left her first husband in the Thirties for her childhood crush who happened to be her first cousin.   He was a practicing alcoholic and not always very well behaved to other members of the family, but Vivian loved him dearly for the rest of his life.

Vivian and Leon

 He, too, was much older, and by the time he died twenty years later, he had pretty well turned his life around, quit drinking, resettled in Florida, and made a respectable husband for my grandmother.   Though my mother refused to speak to him, let alone receive him, he was always a perfect step-grandfather to me when I would spend summers with them in Florida.

They lived for awhile in Atlanta, where Vivian worked as a receptionist at the Henry Grady Hotel.  It was then Atlanta’s premier hotel, and although my brothers and I adored her, she was not known for having a very sparkling personality, even less for her smile, and I have always found it difficult imagining her interacting effectively with hotel clients.

     When "Gone With The Wind" staged its world premiere at the old Loew’s Theatre in 1939, many of the MGM officials stayed at the Henry Grady, and the hotel received a number of invitations for its employees.  Vivian never could remember which of the stars had stayed there, but she enjoyed recounting how she and Leon had both enjoyed the movie, but had left at the intermission, thinking it was over. 

Mama Woods and daughters Vivian (left) and Aunt Ruth

     Widowed in the mid-1950’s, Vivian moved back to Cuthbert where she ran her mother’s boarding house for a few years.

* * * * * *

       She had red hair, and insisted on wearing pink whenever possible; she was always clearly on the fat side; and she was usually short of money.  Yet after two husbands and well past middle age, she always managed to find a new boyfriend, at least two of whom she outlived. Like her husbands, they were never exactly the crème de la crème, and reports of their existence always displeased my mother, who forbid her bringing any of them with her to Aberdeen.

     Whatever might have been said about some of my grandmother’s behavior throughout her life, she definitely did it her way.  Despite some of the collateral damage she may have engendered along the way, she had what most who knew her would describe as a good heart.  I wish I had told her before, but I'd like to say now, affectionately, belatedly and posthumously, “Well done!”

Grandmother Vivian, Cuthbert circa 1975

The Henry Grady Hotel, Atlanta's finest 

The Henry Grady, vintage postcard

I stayed briefly at the Henry Grady when I decided to make my life in Atlanta after finishing school in 1964.

With neither a clear future nor job, it seems odd that I would have checked into a top hotel, but times were certainly different, and jobs were plentiful; and I had soon found both an apartment and a job after a few days in the big city.

The personnel director at the now defunct Atlanta Times took pity on me, and in addition to placing me in a menial job as errand boy for some of the technical people in the press room, he proposed helping me move, as well, when he realized, not without surprise, that I was lodged at the Grady.

I have little memory of my stay there, other than of a vaguely tiny room.  The one vivid recollection I do have is of standing for long minutes on what I recall as an imposing mezzanine balcony with a lot of ornate grill work, surrounding and overlooking the entire ground floor with all of the comings and goings of its crowded lobby.  That was already the type of image that exemplified the other-world atmosphere I always felt in grand hotels.

Built in 1924, the 13-story luxury hotel barely survived a half century.  It had been constructed on the prize piece of real estate which previously boasted the Georgia governor’s mansion.     Located in what was then the fashionable downtown Atlanta, it was particularly favored by Georgia politicians. 

After the Grady was demolished in 1974, the Westin Plaza was built on the site.  

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

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

"Mother" is also featured in blog No. 51, "A Christmas gift ... the little red lamp" and No. 49  "Thanksgiving: Ruth and Dickie ... and more about Mother"  (to access, click on highlighted titles).

45 - An End of the Season Au Revoir

 

SUMMING UP! 

Plaza Athenée lobby 2013 (photo Martin Woods)

I reminisced last week about that long ago Christmas at the Plaza Athenée.  It was not one of my great hotel experiences.  But.  Every cloud is said to have its silver lining, and this one had a really big bonus, as I made an extraordinary realization about my life and myself that day.  

On Christmas Eve I had checked in before noon, and had lunch in the hotel’s main dining room.  There were very few diners, as everyone was undoubtedly saving up for the big evening meal.  Two friends stopped by for a drink in my room early in the evening before they joined their families for  dinner.

Then late that night I ordered a club sandwich to my room and watched a French documentary about some ordinary people who had won the national lottery.

That started a long chain of reflection, mainly concerned with what wonderful life-changing things I might do if only I, too, could win the lottery.

 First, I decided I would resign from my bureaucratic job at UNESCO.  But to do what?  Not quite sure.  I thought, wow, I could go on to even finer hotels and grander restaurants.  Then:  buy a much bigger apartment, perhaps a country home in Normandy like some of my friends, travel all over the world ... 

But the more I reflected, the more I realized that other than the definite pleasure it might have given me to leave my job, most of  the other things were pretty much already part of my life.

I had no need for grander hotels, because I had already discovered (albeit on a somewhat restrained scale), many of the world’s finest.  Ditto for the restaurants.  After all, where else can you improve on food after Paris.  The fact that I have always needed to budget and make little sacrifices to live this life of mine is what has made it so appreciable.
 

The do-it-yoursaelf stairway

  My apartment?  Certainly a bigger one, but I had already been so fortunate to find the one I had, and I wouldn't have dreamed of leaving my wonderful neighborhood at the foot of Montmartre, just a short walk from the old Paris Opera House.  

  I would have been happy enough to add a room or two, but hardly goals that required winning the lottery, as the future would confirm when I one day had the supreme good fortune to acquire and incorporate what was once the building's stables, thus transforming my apartment into a more roomy duplex with a charming (however creaky) spiral staircase.

 

The apartment's ground floor addition with view of "our" courtyard garden

 As for the country house, well, I've never much cared for the country.  Mowing the lawn and all the inherent decisions involved in maintaining secondary residences hold little or no appeal.

 A snazzy vintage sports car might have seemed a fun thing to spend some of my lottery winnings on, but then I have never owned an automobile since I sold my old Chevy for 50-dollars in 1966, so can’t imagine why I’d suddenly want to change that.  Besides, it’s the last thing you need living in Paris, where public transportation is about as good as it gets, and parking an absolute nightmare.

Of course I never won the lottery, never bought a lottery ticket for that matter.  So there was no question of leaving my job at UNESCO, at least not until I had been there for 25 years.  Long before the possibility of an early retirement, I had reconciled myself with the need to keep going to work like everyone else and pulling in that salary. 

At the same time, I had my art business on the side, and though it never gave me a serious income, it did give me the sense of a more creative identity and also from time to time a financial bonus which allowed me to sample some of the luxuries in life I wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise. 


Marguerite socializing at one of my Spring art shows 1992

I understand all this now, but the wonderful thing is that I realized it then.  It was a moment that I have never forgotten, that Christmas of 1989 at the Plaza Athenée when I realized in a kind of euphoric epiphany that winning the lottery wouldn’t have significantly changed anything at all.  Because I already had pretty much the life I had always dreamed of.  

Back to 2013. I no longer give much thought to the lottery, as I know that’s not going to happen.  Today I am more inclined to dream about things I’ve already done, there have been so many!  Then, particularly prodded by the inexhaustible energy of Brenda and her constant need to travel, I also dream of the things I might still do.

Some of them I can’t so much afford any longer.  Whether or not I’ll get around to another voyage around the world or a trip to Myanmar or down to South America remains to be seen.  

It may reveal a lack of imagination, but for the moment I dream of returning to some of the finer places I knew in the early days, when I first started this life of hotel hopping.

Most of the hotels of my fondest memories have become less accessible today, but who knows.  It looks like another trip to the recently renovated Gritti Palace in Venice just might be in the cards in the Autumn.   I haven’t been back to Sicily to The Timeo --my first really exquisite hotel experience-- in over 30 years.  It has been taken over in recent years by the luxury group Orient Express; prices are a little daunting, and I fear it might not hold up to my memories.  But there again, who knows? At the least, I may just have to make do with lunch at the Paris Ritz whenever it decides to re-open, hopefully sometime in 2014.

Another of my dreams is to continue this blog in one form or another, but for the moment I have exhausted my supply of hotel musings.  So I’ll take a summer break, and come back soon.

This seems like an appropriate time to thank everyone who has supported these musings until now.  I have been really thrilled with the response and the fact that comments have regularly come in from literally the four corners of the globe.  Some supporters are part of my present day life; some are friends from lives in the past; and others, readers who have simply emerged from the invisible cyber world which still seems totally futuristic to me.

A special and heartfelt thank-you to Brenda and Dickie, who have been remarkable editors, giving me pertinent advice every week, encouraging me to rethink a word, a sentence, occasionally a whole posting.  Always with a beneficial result, despite my sometimes tendency to resist.  

Brenda and Dickie at l'Hotel, Paris 2013

This will just be an au-revoir.  Don’t hesitate to scroll back to any of the 45 musings you may have missed, they won’t be  going anywhere, probably not for many years.  Thanks again for reading so far, and hope to see you back after the vacations.

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

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The Plaza Athenée was also featured in blog No. 44, "The Best and the Worst " July 5, 2013;   No. 33, "Breakfasts in the 1970's" April 19, 2012; and No. 13 "Those Silver-Spooned Children" Nov. 23, 2012(to access, click on above titles).

44 - The Best and the Worst

 

RAFFLES, THE GRITTI, THE CARLYLE AND THE PLAZA ATHENEE

Evening on the terrace of The Gritti's Club del Doge (hotel photo)

Back in January I said I’d save my all-time best and worst hotel experiences for later.  As this blog's first season soon comes to a close, it seems a fitting time to look back at my personal F.P.H.M. awards*.

I’ll start with the most disappointing:  The Carlyle in New York City sometime in the early 1990’s.   

As a teenager, I had read and associated the Carlyle with the Kennedy “Camelot Years.”  It was generally conceded to have been the New York branch of the White House, and in addition to being home away from home to the various Kennedy  families, it was also rumored  to be the discreet place of rendez-vous for John and Bobby with various mistresses.

My room at the Carlyle 1993

I think to be perfectly fair, my expectations were too high and my means too low.  I had profited from a particularly attractive weekend special, far less expensive than usual, and once there, I really felt like the poor relation.  

 My room had everything it was supposed to, but was small, cramped and somehow lacking in the kind of glow you expect from a great hotel. It had two large windows, but with a view of a brick wall.

When checking out, I left two postcards with the concierge.  A couple of weeks later, back in Paris, I received a form letter saying I had forgotten to settle my account for two stamps, and that the amount had been deducted from my credit card.

It was like making a statement that return business was not something that especially appealed to them!

* * * * * * * *

 Number 2 least satisfying memory:   It was on a fluke that I decided to spend the night at a hotel in my own city.  I spent Christmas Eve 1989 alone at the Plaza Athenée, admittedly an eccentric choice for someone living just a mile or so away.

My room at the Plaza 1989

I don’t remember how I found out, as it was well before the internet, but I had come across a super discount which only applied on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 

The hotel was pretty close to empty, but that didn’t help me to get a nicer room.  Mine was certainly among their least glamorous, despite a grand chandelier.  The bed was huge, but the chairs were lumpy, and my 24 hour stay was just barely acceptable.

There may have been some sort of personnel problem, as the few employees still on duty around the reception area seemed kind of discontented, even sullen when I arrived. 

 Checking out shortly after noon on Christmas Day, I can see myself now with my little overnight duffle bag, walking through the lobby, not succeeding in making eye contact with anyone.  Out the revolving doors without so much as a goodbye.  No one at any of the reception stations bothered to look up as I departed, let alone wish me a Merry Christmas!

Just so I don’t over-dramatize these two booby prize hotel memories, I have to admit that I continue today to sometimes frequent both establishments, though certainly have not been back to spend the night.    

Over the years I have continued to pass through the Carlyle’s magnificent black marble lobby from time to time.  It remains one of the great hotel entrances.  Brenda and I spent a wonderful evening two years ago, seated at the bar (the only financially justifiable way to afford this very expensive supper club) of the Café Carlyle for Debbie Reynolds’ show, and last year we returned for an evening with Woody Allen and his Dixieland Band.

The same applies for the Plaza Athenée, where we sometimes enjoy Sunday lunch in their Relais Plaza grill room.

So I had a bad experience or two once upon a time.  Life goes on, it is all fodder for my unusual  hobby, and I am too much a hotel fanatic to hold unnecessary grudges.    

* * * * * * * * 

Now for the best:

It goes without saying, this is all totally subjective.  Big drum rolls ....

 

Raffles, Singapore 2000

My first stay at the mythical Raffles in Singapore ranks high.  I hadn’t realized that the hotel only had apartments, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked into mine and discovered three exquisite rooms with a beautiful private patio. 

Upon arrival, I discovered a magnificent arrangement of exotic fruit.  Every day thereafter, regardless of how much or how little I had consumed, the fruit bowl was replaced with a new display of fresh and colourful  goodies. 

First bedroom at Raffles

Once settled in, I noticed that I was next door to one of the more prized apartments, the Ava Gardner Suite, where the North Carolina native had once had a prolonged stay while filming “Bhowani Junction” in the mid-1950’s. 

Raffles houseboys

As human nature often sees to it that we are never quite satisfied with what we are given, I began to regret not having found myself in the A.G. Suite, even though it was the last thing I needed or could have afforded.

  Be that as it may, I noticed the door ajar the next morning.  The houseboys were changing the bed linens, and I jumped at the chance to peek inside.  As nice as it was, it gave me a renewed appreciation for my own Raffles quarters, because, other than the shape of a couple of chairs and the color of some of the fabrics, our suites appeared to be identical.  Except for a few hundred dollars in price!

Raffles rooftop pool

* * * * * * * *

 My first trip to the Gritti Palace in Venice ties with Raffles for all-time top hotel memory.  Par for the course, I had found a really inexpensive off-season (it was mid-December) special.   

The first morning when I went down to the elegant Club del Doge restaurant, I was somewhat taken aback by the prices on the breakfast menu.  I knew that mine was ostensibly included, but as there was no buffet, and as I had no possibility of going a penny over my all-inclusive budget, I realized I’d have to  ascertain exactly what might and might not be incuded in my forfeit.  

The Gritti Palace today, like entering another world

I finally summoned the courage to question the restaurant manager, as to what I was actually allowed.   Giancarlo was an imposing figure, and I didn’t want to appear unnecessarily gauche.

  He seemed to know precisely who I was and what were the conditions of my hotel package.  “Whatever pleases you,” he said.  “Feel free to order anything on the menu, and have no fear, it is included in the price of your room."  

Giancarlo on the Club del Doge Terrace 1994

 On later trips I got to know Giancarlo better, and realized he didn’t see himself as imposing at all.  I once took a photo of him outside the terrace restaurant, and he sent me a touching note after I returned to Paris.

Whereas I saw him as the epitome of sophistication and imagined him growing up in the refined environment of Venice, he told me he was born in a tiny country village in southern Sicily where his old mother still lived.  He said she had hardly ever been to mainland Italy and then only to the Campania region around Naples.

He explained that his mother had never had a very clear idea of his life away from Sicily.  When he sent her the photo I had taken he was already nearing retirement age, and she told him that for the very first time she was able to understand the elegance of  his life, working in a palace like the Gritti.

View from room 215 at The Gritti, my first and best room with a view

 *Frank Pleasants' Hotel Musings awards.

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

Next Friday:  "End of the Season Au Revoir"

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Raffles and The Gritti were also featured in blog No. 31, "Fire, Water, and a Bloody Fall " April 5, 2013;  the Gritti in No. 17, "Celebrating the Holidays Away from Home" Dec. 21, 2012; No. 10, "Danny the Night Concierge," Nov. 11, 2012 and No. 23, "Mrs. X at The Gritti" Feb. 8, 2013.  The Plaza Athenée and The Gritti were featured in No. 13 "Those Silver-Spooned Children" Nov. 23, 2012 (to access, click on above titles).

43 - Teensy Misbehaves at the Connaught!

THE CONNAUGHT HOTEL, London

The Connaught seen from Carlos Place (photo courtesy of the hotel)

The Connaught has always held a special place in the London Hotel firmament.    Historically the most elitist and probably the most snobby, it tended towards a more staid and older clientele, guests often coming as much for its discretion and privacy as for its understated luxury.

Grant in Hollywood circa 1938

It was always more where famous people went when they didn't wish to be seen.  Cary Grant (him again!) might have stayed at the Savoy if he were promoting a movie, but he definitely returned to the Connaught for some more anonymous peace and quiet.

I doubt if I had even heard of it the two years I lived in London.  It wasn’t until about 1990 that I discovered the Connaught Grill with its enticing prix-fixe menu.  It was a particularly amazing value for money at Sunday lunch, when a good English chef prepared some of the simple, old fashioned family-style dishes (like lamb roast or steak and kidney pie, and above all their spectacular bread and butter pudding).  It was always packed, and people-watching was as entertaining as the food.

A unique Connaught restaurant highlight was the mid-meal changing of the table cloth.   Every time I would imagine it just wouldn’t be possible.  Then before you realized what was happening, there were two, three or four waiters ever so discreetly removing plates and cutlery, then replacing –one corner at a time—the entire table cloth (albeit with a hidden, second cloth laying in wait underneath the first).

Each time it seemed like an extraordinary feat.  I’m afraid that after many decades of this tradition, the new guard seems to have abandoned this signature tour de force.

I only stayed at the Connaught once.  Needless to say, I had found a special promotion which made it somehow possible to justify the extravagance.  Unfortunately, that trip remains connected in my memory with a particularly negative experience.  No fault whatsoever of the hotel.

The Connaught's imposing stairway  (Trip Adviser photo)

I had an old college friend from North Carolina, later transplanted to Texas, who has remained close through most of my adult life.  He was very much like a brother, and I think the fact that he was born in the elegant Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia (a fluke of wartime requisitioning, but still what a sensational start to life!) was no small factor in cementing our long friendship.

His second wife, Teensy (well, we’ll call her that anyway) never quite appreciated my presence, and it was often fairly mutual.  I guess I didn’t always make the best effort, and she certainly didn’t either.

They were to be in London with their three teenaged children, and my old friend talked me into arranging a trip at the same time.  That was when I found the Connaught special.  They were close by at a friend's apartment off Grovesnor Square for the week, and I took the Eurostar over for the weekend.

It had been several years since I had last seen them, and as the trip was shortly after Christmas, I launched out on a special invitation in guise of belated Christmas gift.

I invited the family to join me at the Connaught for lunch, though with a couple of important stipulations: 1) that we all limit ourselves to the luncheon prix fixe menu and 2) for the three teenagers, no coca-colas (need I point out the financial ruin of a few soft drinks in that calibre of restaurant?).  Instead, I invited the group to my room before lunch for drinks, including cokes for the kids, which I had purchased from a neighborhood grocery store.   

I was immediately aware of a certain tension in the air.  Teensy was clearly unhappy that I was there, which was particularly unfortunate since I was the host.  I got the distinct impression that she saw me as ruining her London holiday.  Sensing disaster in the air, I made a silent vow to remain as dignified and polite as I could possibly manage.

I think I did quite well, and after a few minutes of extreme tension, I told myself I would turn this bad moment into a game whereby I would react to the negative vibes with a maximum of grace, act as though everyone was cordial and happy,  and that I would undoubtedly never have to receive her again.

Once in the restaurant, Teensy, in her first moment of vocal aggresivity, suggested that she might prefer to look at the more expensive à la carte menu just in case something else might tickle her fancy.  Ultimately, she didn’t quite dare go any further, and opted like the rest of us for the luncheon menu.

As I ordered wine and water for our party, she burst forth with a new defiance.  Turning to her youngest daughter, who began to squirm uncomfortably in her chair, she asked, “Wouldn’t you like a coca-cola?”  When the little girl, who knew exactly what was going on, replied in the negative, Teensy kind of lost her cool, and reiterated a bit louder, this time to the rest of the family:  “Are you sure you don’t want any soft drinks?”

That’s pretty much the end of the story.  The point was made.  No one actually had soft drinks, and it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if they had.  Suffice it to say we lunched under a certain strain.  Between the lamb and the dessert, the tablecloth was miraculously changed, but no one was in much of a mood to appreciate this special sleight of hand.

It’s all far in the past now.  I never saw Teensy again, and my college friend has since gone on to another wife. 

The Connaught seems to have successfully moved with the times.  The bars and lobby areas are now generally packed with exceedingly young, under-dressed, blazé whiz kids who probably excel in the worlds of finance and computers.  

A kind of social democracy arrived in London way back in the Swinging Sixties, but it took quite a few decades before finally reaching the Connaught.  The Grill has since changed names, with a new, very French restaurant in its place; and in the process it has lost much of the special charm it once held for me. 

The Connaught bar (Photo courtesy of the hotel)

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

Next Friday:  "My All-Time Best and Worst Hotel Memories"

42 - Turning Back The Clock at the ...

HOTEL LANGLOIS, Paris




The Langlois by night, the rue St. Lazare looking like something right out of a movie set (photo Martin Woods)

 
     Every once in a while, I receive a nightmare request:  to recommend an inexpensive, charming Parisian hotel with good-sized rooms and reasonably modern amenities; in a central, picturesque neighborhood; and preferably with U.S. news channels and free WiFi.

Experience has taught me that this is pretty nearly an impossible task.  Looking  back over the years, I would say that those neighborhood hotels I have reserved for friends have more often than not been met with disappointment.   

Once, a comfortably fixed North Carolinian whom I had put up in a 80-dollar (that was his limit) neighborhood hostelry complained to the desk clerk that he had received infinitely better service when staying at the Ritz!   Like, HELLO?  

The problem with recommending bargain hotels is that they are so subjective:  one person’s paradise can be another’s hell. 

  I remember years ago reading an Esquire interview with Jerry Lewis, who insisted he would never consider staying at any hotel in Europe other than the Hilton because –no matter what country he found himself in-- he could be certain that the room would be rigorously identical.  This interview turned me against Jerry Lewis for life, as it made him seem so foolish.  I can’t think of anything less appealing than a hotel which boasts all of its rooms to be identical.

I was  recently looking for a convenient place to house my Amsterdam friends, Martin and Marina, when I stumbled upon the Hotel Langlois.   Bingo!  I wonder if I haven’t uncovered that rare bird which just might fit a lot of travelers’ criteria! 

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY --Arrival of Marina (center) and Martin last month.
Martin was one of my earliest Parisian friends, and it was here 
at the Gare du Nord that their romance began some 37 years ago.

 Years ago, I was aware of what was then called “Les Croisés,” but  it was so discreet that I wasn’t even sure it was a hotel.   I had often noticed the elegant chandeliers at night, but wondered if it wasn’t some sort of private club.  I once met someone at a dinner party who told me that it was a special hotel of charm and distinction. 

Then I kind of forgot about it.  Though just around the corner, I don’t actually have occasion to walk by often, and had never seen the establishment first hand until a few weeks ago. 

 When you enter the Langlois today, it’s like walking into a time machine.  It could have beautifully served as one of the sets for Woody Allen’s delightful fantasy, “Midnight In Paris” where he found himself periodically transposed into 1920’s Paris.

Details from another era

Built in 1876, first as a bank, it transformed itself into a hotel shortly before the turn of the century.  For the next 100 years or so, it was certainly one of those rather refined, elegant middle-level hotels that appealed to ladies of “good family” in from the provinces and businessmen of a certain standing.

 There were many such hotels at the time of its creation, scattered across Paris and all over France.  By the 1950’s, these “bourgeois hotels,” as they were sometimes called, were still to be found with a little effort, but with the passing years, fewer and fewer in Paris resisted the call of chain groups or more lucrative uses of the real estate.

Which leads me to a rather extraordinary conclusion:  I wonder if the Langlois isn’t today just about the only hotel of its kind left in Paris.

View of an interior courtyard

 With its marble fireplaces, charming old oil paintings, wood-paneled wrought iron elevator, various art-nouveau and art-déco furnishings, and a myriad of quirky bric-a-brac, you get  more a feeling of being in a country home than in a big city hotel. 

Eleven years ago, the filmmaker Jonathan Demme (“Philidelphia" and “Silence of the Lambs”) was scouting out a location for a remake of the 50’s Audrey Hepburn-Cary Grant hit, “Charade", when he came upon what was then the Hotel Croisés. 

A stylish Grant leaving Claridge's in London (Google)

The film, “The Truth About Charlie” starred Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton.  It had a big budget, and seemed to have the ingredients for another international success.  

As it turned out, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn were sorely missed, and  "Charlie" was a resounding flop.  Neither it nor its hotel setting were destined for any kind of lasting place in movie history. 

Plenty of room in Martin and Marina's old fashioned bathroom (photo by Martin Woods)

Hotel director Ahmet Abut (see sidebar) was delighted to rent out the entire building for the five weeks of shooting.  Wahlberg chose to stay at the Four Seasons, but many of the cast and crew moved into the hotel.  Abut, who looks back on the adventure with nostalgia, received a screen “thank you” in the closing titles.  

One of the hotel's three suites (Langlois photo)

"It was an unforgettable experience, and the film's failure at the box office was a shame, but it doesn't really matter.  It was still Jonathan Demme; he is still an important ... a great director," he said.  

"And it left beautiful memories for me and a wonderful trace in the history of my hotel."  

Abut was so pleased with the new insignia for the fictitious "Langlois" of the film that he decided to keep it and adopt its name for his establishment.  So, for the last decade the hotel boasts signs for both the Langlois and the original "Croisés."  

If you are looking for new and modern and trendy, then this is certainly not the place to go.  However, if you are attracted by a sort of authenticity, a genuine peek into what was once considered the “real” old France, then this charming old hotel is probably for you. 

And Martin and Marina were happy there.  At least I hope so.

Check-in (Martin at right)

SIDEBAR:  Ahmet Abut

Abut with Madame Bojena, the Langlois' house manager

When I first met Ahmet Abut recently in the Langlois' little lobby, he was keyed up with an almost childlike exhilaration from a recent auction acquisition.  

He could hardly wait to show me his latest buys, two beautiful wood-carved art-nouveau chairs, already very much at home in one of the hotel's second floor front rooms.  He had also recently bid on a  fine 1930's stained glass from a transatlantic company vaunting English Channel crossings, which now discreetly graces a little nook off from the reception desk.

An habitué, myself, of the Drouot Auction House, I had noticed  Mr. Abut there over the years, but generally he would be scouting out more prestigious sales, and our paths never officially crossed.

 His is an overflowing enthusiasm for the Langlois.  In addition to running

the 27-room neighborhood hotel, Abut is a procurer/buyer of fine art for the Pera Museum in Istanbul, which is the more official reason for finding himself most days at Paris’ auction houses.  At the same time that he looks for his museum, he is also scouting the sale rooms for special pieces to enhance his hotel.

 “Every new purchase puts into value this beautiful property,” he says with a contagious passion for his later-life profession.  He claims to put most of the profits back into the hotel with a constant search for pieces of quality, trying to find that rare object “which will illuminate or even transform one of my rooms.” 

A native of Turkey and Parisian since 1970, Abut has directed the Langlois for the last 15 years.  “You have to always remember that a hotel room must replace the guest’s whole house, so I do everything to make it comfortable and attractive," he said.

Flower boxes ouside second floor rooms

“The Langlois is not a palace, but each room has a soul of its own.  The world is constantly changing, but I try to make sure that the Langlois retains its charm. 

"Our guests have chosen us, and I must be up to the challenge of this compliment, so that the client will want to come back and stay at the Langlois again.”  

At 70, Abut has no thoughts of retirement.  “I have no interest in it.  I have always done what I loved in life, and I’d like to continue.  I have a passion for art, for archaeology, and for this hotel.  Why would I want to stop?

“I have only one wish, that is to die one day –certainly not in my bed, asleep!-- either at the auction house buying a painting or here working in my hotel."  

He paused for dramatic effect, then added:  "That is my wish, but not for another 25 or 30 years if possible.”

 

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

Next Friday:  "Teensie Misbehaves at The Connaught"

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Martin and Marina were also mentioned in blog No. 22, "Duplicate Ticketing" Jan. 25 (to access, click on above title).