The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone ... or Brief Encounter with Mrs. Davis

(This musing first appeared  28 August 2012)

HOTEL MEURICE, Paris

Mrs. Davis 1970

    I probably wouldn’t remember her at all today, were it not for the photo still hanging on the wall.   Mrs. Davis is a quirky little memory from my earliest and poorest days in Paris, and she gave me my first peek at the Hotel Meurice.

     I have always been interested in taking photos, though never motivated to learn anything on the technical side.  As a result, my pictures are more often than not quite unsatisfying, but when I manage to eliminate 99 percent of them, I end up with a few that are more or less what I was hoping to attain.

Vintage me (photo by Ann Gazères)

     In 1970, I had rented a small room in a large apartment off the Champs-Elysées.  It was just around the corner from the Hotel Plaza Athenée, though I didn’t know that at the time. It was a ridiculous neighborhood for a poor person to live in, but I didn’t really know that either. 

     I had just found a job which consisted of typing English and French translations of what I think were missile specifications.  They were destined for some middle eastern government, were certainly incomprehensible in any language, and my fairly liberal politics of the period didn’t go so far as interfering with my minimum wage paycheck.

                                                                                             

     One Saturday morning I was walking about the neighborhood when I saw a glamorous older woman, elegantly dressed in what I now imagine was a designer suit and a snazzy wide-brimmed hat, with a tiny chihuahua cuddled next to her bosom.  She was strolling up the Avenue François Premier, looking to my mind very much like the latter day Vivien Leigh whom I had recently seen at the Cinémathèque in “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.”  

  

A young Tennessee (Google)

       My Mrs. Stone turned into a local café, and as she entered, two young Mediterranean men reached over simultaneously from either side to pet the little dog.  It was  a provocative gesture, and it reinforced my association with  the Tennessee Williams novella.

     I was both timid and brazen in those days, depending on the moment, and perhaps on how much wine I had consumed (ultimately a bit of a problem that I came to terms with while still young).  I approached Mrs. Stone, who turned out to be Mrs. Davis, an American resident in Paris.  I explained I’d like to take her photo.

     “Are you with a magazine?”  Unfazed, appearing to me the epitome of sophistication.

     I then had to explain what must have seemed odd, that I didn’t actually have my camera with me.  As it turned out, Mrs. Davis was very pleasant, as well as patient, and said if I would hurry, she’d wait with her coffee until I returned with camera.

     I did take the picture which is the one above. She said she lived at the Meurice Hotel across from the Tuileries Gardens (as did Salvador Dali that year), and suggested I could perhaps drop a copy off there.

Salvador Dali (Google archives photo)

     I’m sure I had never heard of the Meurice in those faraway days, but probably didn’t admit it.   The following week I went there with my folder of photos, hoping she would be there and thinking she might become some sort of glamorous friend.  When I entered, the hotel was so unexpectedly grand that I was seized with a kind of stage fright, and I hurriedly left them for her at the desk.  

     I never saw Mrs. Davis again, but I’ve always kept her picture, framed with others all these years in my bathroom.  It was the first time I had ever set foot in a Parisian Palace hotel.    It took me a few years, but I soon made up for lost time.

Entering The Meurice today

click above to enter My 1970 Paris Album

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

[Photos are mine unless otherwise credited]

Next: "Sunday Lunch at The Carthage Hotel ..."

63 - Looking back at Venice ... and Paul Newman

 

Newman circa 1975 (Spokeo photo)

     By the advent of my thirties, I had resided and traveled in several countries on both sides of the Atlantic; I was beginning to speak a semblance of fluent French, and had acquired an interest and a certain experience in art and theatre.  YET,  in many areas I remained extraordinarily green.   In some ways I was like the most Ozarkian hillbilly, just slightly camouflaged behind a more urbane mask.

I remember on my first trip to Venice, I was traveling alone, and had reserved my hotel through a travel agency.   It was a small, unexceptional hotel among thousands.  Though I have long since forgotten its name, I did at least know that much when I arrived at St. Mark's Square.  I knew the hotel was in the neighborhood, but hadn't the minimal savvy to even note its complete address.  

 

Pigeons on St Mark's Square 1976

  To be fair with myself, I had understood the address to be "St. Mark's."   However, I had only the name of the hotel, but no street number.   I didn't understand that St Mark's denoted a whole, vast neighborhood, far larger than all of Aberdeen, and not a precise street.
 

As I had a horror of being taken for a tourist (as if I would have ever been taken for anything other in a city of which there is little else), I didn't carry a map.   So with  neither the full address nor a street map, I proceeded --suitcase in hand-- to spend the next hour or more meandering around, in and out of every little side street off the mind-bogglingly enormous Piazza San Marco. 
  

If my memory is to be relied upon,  I think at some point when I was just about to drop from exhaustion and/or divulge my true identity as a TOURIST by asking help in English, I suddenly saw my hotel in the distance.  The only really crazy part of this story is that at the time I don't think I found anything particularly peculiar in my behavior.  It is today that I look back on it in dismay, and am grateful that I somehow, gradually got my act together a bit better in the decades that followed.

Paris 1976, Gare de Lyon.  Ready to embark

 on the Simplon Express for a first trip to Venice

While dragging my suitcase through the narrow streets around Venice's major piazza, I made an unexpected sighting: the actor Paul Newman.  He was strolling around Saint Mark's with a young woman who I later learned was his daughter.  

I did NOT ask Paul Newman if he knew where my hotel might be located.  I didn't ask him anything, though I certainly could have, as the international superstar was nonchalantly wandering about, anonymously, totally unimpeded by any sign of fan recognition.   That is, no one except me seemed to be paying him the slightest attention.  

The world of movie stars is a volatile one,  however.  After I checked into my  hotel, and went back out into the neighborhood to look around, I again spotted P.N.   This time, everything had dramatically changed.  In the span of about a half hour, he was now surrounded by a really enormous crowd.  Virtually unable to take a step, it was only thanks to a hefty contingent of local carabinieri  that he was separated from the growing mob, and escorted back to his hotel.

For the record, his hotel was the Gritti.    I had never heard of it then, and for a number of years afterwards I always associated The Gritti with Paul Newman.

* * * * *

Ever since the Paul Newman connection, I dreamed of one day staying at the Gritti, myself.  And of course I did.  It was not too many years later, I found a special off-season rate for a back room and took it for just one night before catching a train for Rome.  It was the time the hotel was flooded (see musing No. 31 "Fire, Water, and a Bloody Fall"), but that was only one of the inconveniences from that trip.  There was also a 24-hour transportation strike, and the following day all trains out of Venice were cancelled.  

I had no choice but to stay another night, and unfortunately an additional 24 hours at The Gritti --promotional special or not-- was financially out of the question.  So I had to move myself down the street to one of the city's  more modest and least expensive hotels, The Do Possi.  I don't know how it is now, but at the time the only thing to recommend it was the price.  It was a depressing comedown after my night at the Gritti.   

 I learned one thing that trip:  when you have to go from one extreme to the other, it's a lot better to do it the other way around!   

October 2013, on the Academia bridge ... 35 years later (photo Brenda P.)

That's all folks ... It's the end of the season

Another season of hotel musings now comes to an end.  I hope there will be other musings in the future, but for the moment I'm not quite sure.   I'll take a  break, and in the Autumn I'll see where my creative juices lead me.  

In the meantime, many thanks to all who have followed my posts these last two years.  Some of my old friends and a few new ones met out there in cyberland have been particularly loyal and supportive.   It's been a rewarding and sometimes cathartic experience.   I hope this will just be an au revoir!

 

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

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

The Gritti Palace was also featured in blog No. 10 "Danny, the Night Porter", No. 17 "Celebrating the Holidays Away From Home",  No. 23 "Mrs. X at The Gritti", No. 31 "Fire, Water and a Bloody Fall", and No. 48 "Back to Venice ..." (to access, click on titles).

62 - Those who never (officially) checked out ...

       Or Death in a Hotel  

     Death is never a very joyful subject, and not one hotels generally much care to discuss.  They do have to be prepared, however, because it is something they are likely to have to deal with sooner or later.

     When it does occur, staff are trained to react with maximum discretion.   Many larger hotels have special hallways and back stairways to accommodate the comings and goings of funeral-related activities.  As nothing is more of a downer than a sheet-covered gurney pushed through the lobby, hotels will usually do whatever is necessary to keep reminders of death out of sight.

     Here is a little potpourri of hotel obituaries.   The only thing these celebrities had in common is that they all breathed their last breath in a hotel. 
 

* * * *

The actor James Gandolfini (whom Brenda and I had seen on Broadway the year before) died of a heart attack in room 440 at the Boscolo  Hotel Exedra in Rome last summer. The 51-year-old star of “The Sopranos” was en route to my old stomping grounds in Sicily to receive an acting award at the Taormina Film Festival.

 The Boscolo Hotel Exedra  in Rome was the site of the heart

 attack that killed actor James Gandolfini (Getty Images)

* * * *

Poet and author Dylan Thomas succumbed to alcoholism in November of 1953 at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. It was just two days after having told the desk clerk : “I've just just had 18 straight whiskeys, I think that's my record.”

Playwright Tennessee Williams died in the more upmarket Hotel Elysée in 1983 in a similarly advanced state of alcoholism.  The official cause was that he choked to death on the cap from a bottle of eye drops.

* * * *

Singer Whitney Houston, was discovered dead in the bathtub of room 434 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills in 2012. Death was attributed to accidental drowning, but hey! just between you and me, drugs were definitely involved!

Hendrix 1968 (Bing)

Houston's was but the most recent of a rock history of high profile drug-related hotel demises.  Rock legend Janis Joplin checked out not far away at the Landmark Motor Hotel just off Sunset Strip in Hollywood. She was only 27 when she died there in 1970 of a heroin overdose.

Jimi Hendrix succumbed to a fatal overdose of sleeping pills in London's Samarkand Hotel one month earlier. Both deaths were ruled accidental.

* * * *

Wilde (Google)

  Oscar Wilde, who was surprisingly only 46, died of cerebral meningitis at the Hotel Alsace in Paris in 1900.  His last words were reported to be: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death... and one of us has got to go!” (See Musing No. 58, Rue des Beaux Arts: Oscar Wilde, David Hockney and Francis Bacon, for more).

* * * *

    

Chanel at home at The Ritz (Vogue)

  It was 1971.  At the ripe old age of 87, Coco Chanel, the French fashion designer credited with inventing “the little black dress”, died of natural causes in her suite at the Paris Ritz where she had resided since 1934.  One of her most important rivals in the years between the wars, Jean Patou, was found dead across town at the Hotel George V some three decades earlier. 

Patou 1932 (Le Monde)

   Patou's name hasn't retained quite the luster of Chanel's in the intervening years, but both of their couture houses have continued long after their deaths. Patou had the last word, of sorts, when his creation “Joy” was voted “perfume of the century” by an international perfume association in 2000, narrowly beating out “Chanel No. 5.”

* * * *

German composer Richard Wagner died at the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi in 1883 while wintering in the now defunct Venetian hotel with his family. He was purported to be composing a new opera when he lost consciousness.  Wagner's grand hotel death later inspired Thomas Mann's much adapted novella “Death in Venice.”

* * * *

Posthumous Harriman bio

   Pamela Churchill Harriman, the British-born socialite cum political activist who became a highly effective and popular U.S. Ambassador to France during the Clinton administration, suffered a fatal stroke while swimming in the Ritz pool in 1995. Then-President Jacques Chirac, who had a close friendship with the glamorous diplomat, awarded and placed the cross of the Légion d'honneur on her coffin before it boarded Air Force One for the U.S.A.

Covergirl Thatcher

Her compatriot Margaret Thatcher had already retired from active politics before Harriman was named ambassador. She began a long descent into illness soon after being pushed out of office by her own party in 1990. 

Two of her oldest friends were David and Frederick Barclay, the brothers who owned the London Ritz.   After being diagnosed with Alzheimers, Mrs. Thatcher continued to live in her London home for a number of years. But in her declining months, following bladder surgery, the Barclays insisted that she move into a suite at the Ritz where she was tended by her own caregivers as well as the hotel staff.    It was there that she died in April of 2013 of a stroke while reading in bed.

Mrs. Thatcher's home at the Ritz.  In her last weeks, she was sometimes able to lunch at the hotelrestaurant where diners and staff often applauded when she entered with her caregiver.

* * * *

This hotel necrology is far from exhaustive, I have selected but a few of the better known examples.  When you get right down to it, I suppose the luxurious surroundings mattered little.   Dying in a grand hotel is still dying, but for some it may have made the final exit just a tad more comfortable.

 

SIDEBAR: A Luxurious Exit

Marie McDill in her garden back home in Vermont (NY Times)

     When Marie McDill was diagnosed with a fast-spreading terminal cancer, she had one wish: to go out in style! 

No stranger to elegant living, the seventy-year-old New England widow always had a soft spot for her favorite NYC hotel, The Carlyle.  So, she put her affairs in order, said goodby to her friends in Vermont, and moved into the iconic Madison Avenue hostelry.

With the support and complicity of her three children, she had booked herself into an eighth-floor suite just ten days after receiving the grim medical prognosis.   Marie McDill died peacefully in her sleep ten weeks later.

The family hired two hospice attendants from Brooklyn to care for Mrs. McDill:  Rose and her sister Shirley rotated shifts on a 24-hour basis.  In the evenings, Rose would sing spirituals for her patient-friend.

"She would put her head back and close her eyes and ask me to sing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.'  She'd say, 'Give me the long version, Rose.' "   Rose, who took the subway from her East New York apartment to stay in the Carlyle with Mrs. McDill, later shared her memories with The New York Times.

“It was like low class to high class, going in there,” she said. “I would call her my queen, my majesty, and she called me her princess. And you know, she treated me like one.”

 

McDill in younger days (NY Times)

  Even as she was dying, she would walk with Rose or Shirley into nearby Central Park most afternoons.  Evenings, she would sit on a sofa in the back of Bemelmans Bar, frequently sending requests for her favorite Cole Porter tunes to the hotel's resident pianist, Loston Harris.  

Mrs. McDill's children organized a memorial service at St. Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue.  It was a sophisticated and poignant and very un-funeral-like affair.  Loston Harris played "Just One Of Those Things" and "I've Got You Under My Skin."  The hospice care sisters were also there, and Rose sang "Swing Low ..." once again.   There was a colorful sprinkling of the green uniform worn by doormen, elevator operators and bellhops from her last New York residence.

The service was well attended, but Marie McDill would have undoubtedly been most pleased of all by the large turnout of her friends among the staff of the Carlyle.  

 


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

61 - Goodbye, Rose

THE PIERRE, New York;  BROWNS
and THE PARK LANE, London

Rose, at home in Pinehurst around 1958

 

        Rose was my British aunt.  She was Frances'  friend and was always an integral part of the family.

Born near London, the youngest of a number of brothers and sisters, Rose left England around the time of the First World War.  She first landed in Canada, served as a nurse in the military,  later settled in or near New York City.

Towards the end of the Second World War she was offered a good job as Head Nurse at Moore County Hospital in Pinehurst.  Whether she knew Frances before or after moving to the Sandhills, I do not know, but they always shared a duplex on Everitt Road for as long as I can remember.

As a child I thought it was somehow wonderful that Rose became such a part of the Pleasants family, but in some ways she must have regretted losing a portion of her own identity and independence in the process.  

With the twins 1953 (Dickie, Rose, Mickie and Frances)

Frances set up her own decorating business around 1950, and when she later opened an upscale gift shop, she talked Rose into leaving her hospital job to run the shop and keep the company books.

During the business'  thriving years, both Frances and Rose lived --if not in splendor-- a life of comfort far surpassing our family's rather humdrum existence three miles away in Aberdeen.  

* * * * * *

Brown's today (photo Rocco Forte Hotels)

   They once spent a month on a buying trip to London in a suite at Brown's Hotel, Frances and Rose.   It was in 1953, the year of  Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and through most of my childhood I always assumed they had actually been invited to the ceremony, which of course was not the case.

Frances mastered the art of understatement.  She never boasted or openly exaggerated, but discreetly insinuated.  So that when she spoke of having gone to London for the coronation, you just naturally assumed she must have had some direct connection with the Queen of England.

Frances in Blowing Rock, summer of 1956 (photo by Rose F.)

 When the retirement years arrived, and some of Frances' poor business decisions and overspending began to take their toll, Rose was left almost without means.  With only a minimal social security retirement and no assets of her own, she then found herself dependent on an increasingly irritable Frances who, encouraged by the ravages of alcohol, became frequently aggressive and unkind to her longstanding friend.

But like my aunt and uncle Martha and Nelson, Frances and Rose always seemed to be surrounded by friends of means and generosity, often ready to extend invitations of great bounty.

The Morlands were such friends. 

By the time Rose reached her seventies she had been diagnosed with a fatal heart malady, and as a seasoned nurse, she had no illusions about her life expectancy.  Gil and Virginia Morland proposed taking her to England for what was tacitly understood to be a last visit.

It was quite a trip.  Two days at the Pierre Hotel in New York before boarding the Queen Mary for Southampton.   In London the three friends stayed at the Morland's favorite hotel, The Park Lane.  No expense was spared, and Rose was thrilled with the attention.  

The day Rose was to visit her last surviving sister in a distant northern suburb, the Morlands arranged for a car with driver.

I cannot claim to have been a fly on the wall, and there are no witnesses to Rose's family reunion.  I can only imagine the impact  when she swept out of the limousine.  She had become increasingly grand as the years went on, though I assume from family conversations that her beginnings were on the modest side.

When Rose died several years later, she was virtually penniless, but she never had to significantly modify her lifestyle.  Frances took charge of her funeral, and she was buried with the rest of the Pleasants family in Aberdeen.  

Rose towards the end of her life

It was about a month later that Frances received a letter from England.  It was from the sister, and she wrote of bereavement for her departed Rosie.   Then in short order she inquired of the "estate."  A second letter soon followed, this one referring  more directly to the "inheritance."   

Frances replied, explaining there was neither estate nor inheritance, that Rose had died with insufficient means to cover her debts.

A London solicitor telephoned at some later point, representing the disappointed sister.   Everyone was ultimately made to understand that there would be no inheritance en route.  

Rose's life appeared (and not just to her sister) to be one of privilege, and in many ways it was.  Born before the turn of the century into a simpler milieu,  the streets of America were still thought to be paved with gold.  To the family remaining in the same London suburb, it must have looked as though Rose had struck it rich.  

But appearances can be deceiving.   Her adopted country certainly  blessed her with many generous friends and even a second family.  But no fortune. 

Aboard the Queen Mary, the captain's reception circa 1966

 Rose's last trip "home" to England (Cunard photo)

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


[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Rose is mentioned in "A Date With Dephie" Musings and Meanderings No. 17;Rose and Frances were  featured in Hotel Musings No. 4, "A Two-Dollar Hamburger under a Silvery Dome" ; Frances was mentioned in blog No. 51 "A Christmas Gift"  (to access, click on highlighted titles).

60 - Gloria Vanderbilt and Some Tenuous Hotel Connections

HOTEL FOURTEEN, New York City, and INN ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE, Asheville, N.C.

Little Gloria and Mom (Google)

   Gloria Vanderbilt and her tumultuous life have always held a certain fascination for me.

She was called the richest little girl in America during the depression years, and she was probably one of the unhappiest as well.   She began life, carted around by a beautiful, often irresponsible socialite mother from one European grand hotel to another:  summer in Biarritz, winter in Mégeve, a month at the Plaza or the Sherry Netherland in New York, then back to the Ritz in Paris.

The center of one of the highest publicized and most tawdry custody trials of all time, she was ultimately removed from the full-time tutelage of her mother and awarded to the care of an aunt. 

The author of any number of books, many about her life, she has often described what became a childhood rejection of the grand hotel life.  So much so that as a teenager she hated and dreaded the obligatory Sunday lunches at the Sherry Netherlands with her Mother and maternal grandmother, Nanny Morgan (see blog No. 13, "Those silver-spooned children...").

Hotel Fourteen was where Gloria Vanderbilt’s grandmother lived in New York City during the long custody battles and after.  G.V. mentioned it frequently in her first, remarkable  book of memories “Once Upon A Time” (which I highly recommend as a particularly original approach to autobiography ). 

The Fourteen was located at 14 E. 60^th Street, next door to the Pierre, and was operational  until after the Second World War, probably into the Fifties.   It  would have certainly had a certain chic-ness about it, given the location and the clientele, but I have been unable to find much more information.  

I did spot it recently in an old Dominique Dunne novel.  In his roman à clé, “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles,” based on a famous New York society murder of the 1950’s, he described it in its waning post-war days as an address for the assignations of couples looking for a discreet hotel room. 

 I recently looked up the address, and discovered it now houses a Michelin-starred French restaurant, The Rouge Tomate, and Brenda and I and nephew Ryan tried it out on a recent trip to New York. 

The Rouge Tomate (ex-Hotel Fourteen) 2010

A big, sprawling, typically New York brasserie-style restaurant with high ceilings and lots of noise, it was good food and good value at $32 for their three-course lunch menu.

* * * * *

Fantasy oil painting of Biltmore by Thomas Kinkade

  Long before the birth of Gloria Vanderbilt, her great uncle George Washington Vanderbilt built in 1895 a palatial estate in Asheville, North Carolina, known as the Biltmore Estate. 

He died before he ever had a chance to live there, but it remained in the family,  and is still owned and operated by Vanderbilt’s great grandson.  With over 250 rooms, it remains the largest privately owned house in the United States.

Brenda and I stayed at the Biltmore a few years ago on a trip to the North Carolina mountains.

We actually got around to going there in a convoluted manner.  Brenda is very much a plant and garden person; while in South Africa, she had picked up a book on fine gardens throughout the world, which included some particularly impressive photos of the Biltmore Estate.  

I was doing some research on Pinehurst, the beautiful North Carolina village where I was born, and I discovered that the architect who laid out Pinehurst in the 1890’s was the same one who had earlier redesigned Central Park in New York City.  Then, coincidentally while looking a little closer into the Biltmore estate, I learned that Frederick Law Olmsted, who had designed the other two, was equally responsible for the Asheville landmark’s 8,000 acres of landscape gardening.

So when we decided to visit said gardens, and when we discovered the existence of a hotel on the estate, we jumped at the chance of spending a night there. 

Brenda admiring the countryside 2010

I had assumed a little precipitately that the “Inn on the Biltmore Estate” was actually part of the original mansion, which would have been much more interesting.  I only realized upon arrival that the hotel, albeit a handsome building with nice, large, bedrooms and appropriately grand public rooms, was only constructed a handful of years ago.

So not so much a memorable or historic stay, it was more one of convenience and comfort.  The real joy of the hotel was its view, sitting as it is in the middle of some of the spectacular gardens, with the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance. 

In fact, it was a room with a view on a par with some of the world’s finest, of which I have seen a few.

  

Inn on the Biltmore --A room with a knockout view!

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

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

59 - The Countess, The Majestic and Rome

THE MAJESTIC HOTEL, Rome

Rome, the via Veneto near the U.S. Embassy (photo Philip Greenspun)

     It was my first trip to Rome, part of that long train journey with Ann from Paris to Sicily over Christmas of 1978.

Rome was to be a highlight, because we were to stay in a mansion just off the Borghese Gardens; it belonged to an Italian countess who operated her version of a bed and breakfast.

The Countess and her chambre d'hôte had been enthusiastically recommended by an American actress I knew back then.  The ex-wife of a French television personality, she had once made a minor movie in Italy with Anita Ekberg, but by the time I knew her she was neither married nor acting.  I don't remember how I met her, but I knew her just long enough to have listened to her glowing picture of the Rome property and its owner, which turned out to be inaccurate on both counts.

The Countess immediately revealed herself as a thoroughly unpleasant lady.  Her house was more than dilapidated, and the quarters reserved for our use, grim.   She lost no time in rudely insisting that we were not to darken any part of the home other than our room.  

The whole affair turned out to be one of those colossal disappointments.   I particularly recall the unhygienic state of the shower.  Not only were the walls peeling big-time, there was no possibility of squeezing out  more than a trickle of water.

I think our room had once been part of the maids' quarters, and it was not at all what I had in mind when deciding to cohabit with the Italian aristocracy.

We wanted to leave as soon as we saw what we were getting into, but the proprietor was uncooperative.  She already had our money, and it was only thanks to Ann's special negotiating skills that we ended up spending just the first night, then collecting a refund for the rest.

At the moment of our departure, the Countess, who spoke little English, called after us, “Good riddance!” Apparently it is an English expression used commonly in Italian, and rarely has an insult been so mutually felt.

Both our unattractive lodgings and witch-like landlady put a damper on that first glimpse of Rome, but we did soldier on, and during our first stroll around the neighborhood I discovered the beautiful Majestic Hotel, not far away at the bottom of the Via Veneto.

The Majestic was no longer one of the very top Roman hotels, but that was hardly what we were looking for anyway and even less what might fit our budget.  It had certainly known its day of glory, however (see following sidebar), and it was still pretty grand, occupying a prime spot on one of the world's most elegant avenues.

We debated as to whether we even dared ask, it seemed so above our means. Ultimately we ventured inside where we were greeted with all the Italian warmth and charm that the Countess so sorely lacked.

It was that off-season part of December, and for whatever reasons, the hotel was almost empty.   We were proposed a rate of about 30-dollars, which was less than the Countess' bed and breakfast package.  Am I exaggerating on the downscale?   It's so long ago, it is hard to tell.   At any rate, coming from our unhappy experience in the Borghese Gardens, it surpassed our wildest dreams.

A suite at the Majestic today ...not quite as I remember from 1978 (photo courtesy of hotel)

It turned out to be a special, sunny room overlooking a little churchyard with gardens tended by an order of friars.   As we were on the way towards uncharted territory in Taormina (see Musing No. 5 "Room Without Bath"), the Majestic's elegant over-sized bathroom was a godsend and more than we ever expected.

Whenever I remember that luxurious stay at the Majestic, I can still smell the marble of the bathroom floor which --then just as now-- conjured up delicious childhood memories of  Grandmother Pleasants' home in Aberdeen.  

Majestic's managing director in 1979

SIDEBAR: more about the Majestic

Unchanged facade of the Majestic today (photo courtesy of hotel)

      

      The Majestic, inaugurated in 1889, was the first hotel built on the street which was to be called the Via Veneto. 

     Designed by Gaetano Koch, known at the end of the 19^th century as the “prince of architects”, the land cut through the Cappuccini friars' gardens.   Considered from the start to be architecturally ahead of its time, the Majestic's design garnered considerable attention, pundits likening its front facade to the rounded silhouette of a grand piano.
 

Marcello Mastroianni on the Via Veneto (Google)

      If the Majestic knew a certain success in its early years, it was not until the end of the First World War and the boom of the 1920’s that its fortunes reached a zenith.  It was during this era of prosperity and flamboyance that the rich and titled and the first movie  stars  turned it into one of Rome’s “in” places to be and to be seen. 

      The Majestic figured prominently in the iconic 1960 Federico Fellini movie “La Dolce Vita.”  The hotel's exterior was seen as a backdrop in several scenes, one with Marcello Mastroianni, highlighting the Via Veneto.  The film made the entire world aware of the street, if not of its first hotel.

Director Fellini on the Via Veneto circa 1960 (Magnum)

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

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Ann was also mentioned in blog No. 5, "Room Without Bath" Sept. 2012;  No. 20, "Decaffeinated coffee ... in Hungarian?" Jan 2013;  blog No. 33, "Breakfast in the 1970's" April 2013; and No. 58 "Rue des Beaux-Arts:  Oscar Wilde, Francis Bacon and David Hockney" April 2014 (to access, click on highlighted titles).

Back to the tailor's shop, Hong Kong

View of Hong Kong Island from the ex-Regent Hotel       At the end of each new posting, blogger.com (with no urging from me) proposes a selection of previous musings which have had the highest number of hits.  The number of viewers doesn't usually have any obvious correlation with whatever reaction I may have personally received, so it is often fairly baffling why some pieces do so much better than others. Hong Kong seen from Victoria Peak      There is no selection proposed for the least  read musings, which is hardly surprising.  This being said, one of my early favorites has the distinction of having attracted the fewest readers.  You could certainly say in theatrical terms that it flopped.      Anyway, I'd like to give it another chance.       It's the Hong Kong piece.  It was the shortest of any of the musings, and it ran in October of 2012.  Hong Kong is one of my special travel memories.  I've been there four times in all, I've always liked returning to familiar destinations,  and it has never lost its appeal for me.  As money gets scarcer and travel more expensive, I imagine it unlikely I'll be returning to that part of the world. Hong Kong by night      So I trust you'll put up with this repeat.  For all those who didn't read it first go-round, I hope a few of you will give it a try this time.

THE KOWLOON SHANGRI-LA, Hong Kong

Main lobby seen from the mezzanine

       I have always stayed at the Shangri-la Hotel on the Kowloon side when in Hong Kong.  It is not the very grandest of Hong Kong’s many grand hotels, but it is nevertheless extremely comfortable, managed with elegance and excellent value for money.

The elevator carpets --one for each day of the week-- are changed daily, appearing promptly at one minute after midnight.

A funny little memory  remains engraved from my first visit to Hong Kong in 1997.  I had never been to a tailor (there are many thousands of them in this exotic metropolis, and virtually every hotel boasts its resident tailor) and had found my way into the Shangri-la’s shop mainly out of curiosity.

A rather grand old woman who looked much like the late English actress, Gladys Cooper, was giving clipped, precise instructions when I arrived.

   

The real Gladys Cooper (Google archives) 

Johnny

 It was the last year of    British colonial   rule,  and I gathered the lady  had lived there for a long time.  She clearly had a lengthy experience with Johnny (Hong Kong tailors all appear to take Anglo Saxon noms de  plume, presumably  bearing no resemblance to their Asian birth names).

She was accompanied by her twenty-ish granddaughter whom I guessed to be on the point of marriage.  The English dowager had ordered at least a half-dozen outfits for the young woman who sat shyly in a corner, never voicing an opinion.

“Johnny” showed no emotion as the order became increasingly important.

As far as I could make out, there was no mention of price until the very last moment.  As “Gladys Cooper” was exiting the little shop, she glanced briefly in my direction with just a hint of impatience, as though I might have had the good taste not to be there.

She then turned with supreme self assurance to the tailor and said, “Now I don’t want you getting any foolish ideas about asking for a lot of money, because that is entirely out of the question!”

Did  I detect just a flicker of irony in Johnny’s response?   “Certainly not, Madame, I quite understand.” 

Our last trip to Hong-Kong was in 2008 (photo by ?)

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

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]