Carlton Hotel
The Carlton Hotel was a luxury hotel that operated from 1899 to 1940. Located 400 meters from Trafalgar Square , it was designed as part of a facility that included Her Majesty's Theater . The Carlton was first run by the Swiss hotelier César Ritz , with Auguste Escoffier as head chef. The name Carlton was derived from Carlton House 300 meters away .
In 1940 it was badly damaged by German bombing and the remains of the building were demolished in 1958.
history
From 1890 there were plans to develop the undeveloped area. After long negotiations, the theater architect Charles John Phipps was commissioned to work out plans for the reconstruction of Her Majesty's Theater and the construction of the hotel next to it. Acting manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree agreed to rent the theater out, and construction began in July 1896.
When construction began, César Ritz was employed as manager and Auguste Escoffier as head chef of Richard D'Oyly Carte at the Savoy Hotel. They were already planning to become self-employed when Carte fired both of them in 1897 due to financial irregularities. After the successful opening of the Hôtel Ritz in Paris in 1898, Ritz decided to rent the Carlton Hotel for 72 years. The luxuriously furnished Carlton Hotel was now in competition with the nearby Savoy Hotel .
The hotel had more than 250 rooms. The suites had private bathrooms, with a total of around 80 bathrooms. The hotel had a palm courtyard on the ground floor, a large atrium with palm trees. Each room was equipped with a telephone.
The hotel brand Ritz-Carlton evolved from the Hôtel Ritz and the Carlton Hotel. The Carlton no longer exists since 1940, the Ritz is not part of the Ritz-Carlton chain.
Web links
- Newspaper clippings and documents from The Carlton Hotel Ltd (London) of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics
Individual evidence
- ^ British-history.ac.uk: The Haymarket Opera House: CJ Phipps's theater and hotel
- ^ "The Carlton Hotel Limited," The Times, July 24, 1899, p. 3