Grand Pacific Hotel (Suva)

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The Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva

The Grand Pacific Hotel (GPH) is one of the most famous hotels in Suva , the capital of Fiji . It is also called The Grand Old Lady of Suva and is located on the harbor, opposite the Parliament building and Albert Park. The five-star hotel has 113 rooms and a conference hall with 600 seats.

history

Side view
Rear view

Even before the GPH was built, there was a simple hostel on the site, which was named Hotel Suva . The planning for the new building of the hotel began in 1908. The Union Steamship Companywanted to build first-class accommodation for their guests on the South Pacific route in Suva. The architectural office Salmon and Vanes from New Zealand designed the building ensemble based on models of contemporary colonial architecture and the design of ship cabins. Everything should appear as if the guests had not even gone ashore. All rooms were on the first floor of the building. From there, the guests could walk out onto a wide veranda and walk around the building like on a ship's deck. The furnishings of the rooms resembled those of the first-class cabins on the ocean liners of the Union Steamship Company. The fittings for the bathrooms, which were shared by several rooms, were supplied by a company from the United Kingdom . Hall Hog and Company from Dunedin, also based in New Zealand, carried out the construction .

On May 23, 1914, the Union Steamship Company was finally able to open the hotel. In total, the company invested an estimated 25,000 New Zealand pounds in the construction. When it was completed, the hotel had 35 rooms, a salon for the ladies, a billiard room with two tables, a smoking room, an office, a bar and a roof terrace. At the time, rooms were available from 15 shillings per night.

In 1958 the Union Steamship Company sold the hotel to Cathay Hotels (Fiji). The new owners had the building painted pink on the outside in the style of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and in 1960 a wing was added to the building. This was air-conditioned, had 45 rooms, a large dining room and a night club.

The hotel during the restoration works in 2012.

The hotel began to decline in the late 1980s. The owners changed frequently. In 1988 the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust bought the building. However, the new owners failed to stop the decline. The hotel finally closed in 1992. After that, the building fabric began to deteriorate. In March 2000, the Government of Fiji expropriated the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust and handed over the property to the national pension fund Fiji National Provident Fund without first concrete plans for the building to have. In the meantime, the building even served as a barracks to protect it from squatters. Many feared the demolition of the now very dilapidated hotel. Finally, in 2011 the Fiji National Provident Fund signed a joint venture with the Papua New Guinea Superannuation Fund as well as Lamana Development Limited of the Lamana Group, also from Papua New Guinea. The latter two each own 25 percent of the shares, while the Fijian Pension Fund holds 50 percent. Renovation work began in November of that year and was completed in 2013. In total, the new owners invested about 70 million Fiji dollars . Since then, the five-star hotel has 113 rooms and a conference hall with 600 seats.

Guests

The most famous guests of the hotel include the Australian opera singer Nellie Melba , who stayed there in 1915 and 1918, and the Australian aviation pioneer Sir Charles Kingsford Smith , who in 1928 on the first successful flight over the Pacific with his three-engine Fokker F.VIIb-3m Cross across the street Albert Park landed. Other well-known guests of the house were Don Bradman , James Michener and Burt Lancaster . As members of the British royal family, the Prince of Wales and later King Edward VIII and his brother, Edward Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), the Duke of York and later King George VI visited. as well as his daughter, Queen Elisabeth II. (1953 and 1973) the Grand Pacific. They took parades in their honor from the balcony on the side facing Albert Park.

Trivia

Look into the lobby.

A scene from the film White Ruler of Tonga (1954) was filmed at the Grand Pacific Hotel . In it, the main actor Burt Lancaster enters a hotel lobby with his bride.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David de Vaux: Cassowary Hill . Glass House Books (September 1, 2015). ISBN 1-925231-16-X , p. 34
  2. ^ A b George McDonald: Frommer's Guide to the South Pacific, 1994-1995 . Prentice Hall; Edition: 92nd (February 1994) ISBN 0-671-86660-5 , p. 381.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Grand Pacific Hotel: A Short History . Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  4. ↑ Fiji Times, August 24, 1912. Quoted here from: Grand Pacific Hotel: A Short History . Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  5. ↑ a b Radio Australia of March 30, 2012: Nauru presses Fiji over historic hotel . Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  6. ↑ Rachna Lal: Big Plans for 'Grand Old Lady' Return. In: Fiji Sun, August 9, 2011. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  7. ↑ Filipe Naikaso: Iconic Grand Pacific Hotel to be re-developed on August 9, 2011. Accessed September 13, 2016.
  8. ↑ Rosemarie Schyma: DuMont travel manual travel guide South Sea . Dumont travel publisher. Edition: 2 (April 17, 2013) ISBN 3-7701-7694-4 . P. 122.

Coordinates: 18 ° 8 ′ 50 ″  S , 178 ° 25 ′ 21.5 ″  E