Hotel Bristol Berlin
The Hotel Bristol Berlin is a hotel of luxury on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin . It was opened in 1952 as the first hotel in the Kempinski Group. Until 2016 it operated under the name Kempinski Hotel Bristol .
history
In addition to his work in the restaurant business , Richard Unger, Berthold Kempinski's son-in-law , built up a large real estate company in Berlin until the beginning of the First World War . Unger invented the “Kempinski” brand and sold products from his own production. The business was a great success. In 1918 he opened a Kempinski branch on Kurfürstendamm 27. With the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , his decline began. To protect himself and his family, Unger emigrated to the USA . The company M. Kempinski & Co became the property of Aschinger AG . Shortly before the end of the Second World War , a fire destroyed the restaurant on Kurfürstendamm. At the end of the war, Richard Unger's son, Friedrich Unger, returned to Germany.
At the same place where the restaurant was on Kurfürstendamm 27, he began building a hotel in 1951, which opened a year later under the name Kempinski. The building was built according to a design by the architect Paul Schwebes . Until the end of the 1970s, it was the only luxury hotel and the first address for film and television celebrities in Berlin. The gastronomy received a Michelin star in the 1970s .
The subsequent loss of importance of the hotel for Berlin, in addition to the emergence of further luxury hotels and corresponding price pressure, also involved various financial transactions, where the sale and subsequent rental by the billionaire Dieter Bock, who died in 2010, became unrealistic. Bankruptcy threatened .
Around 2015 there were plans to demolish the hotel and rebuild the site. According to the Kempinski AG, there were “productive negotiations with the owners of the Hotel Bristol with the aim of ensuring that the Kempinski Group continues to operate the hotel over the long term”. The building request was made by the owner of the neighboring property, Kempinski-Plaza , who wanted to build a new arcade with shops, a smaller hotel, restaurants and apartments that were to be connected to his neighboring apartment building. The necessary sale of the hotel by its owner was denied by the management at the time, but there were rumors even then that he wanted to part with Kempinski and let the management contract expire in 2016.
The management contract with the Kempinski Group was terminated in 2017. The owner is now running the hotel himself, which is intended to “help with the realignment of the house”. Investments are planned so that “the hotel will position itself among Berlin's top hotels in terms of service quality and product experience in the medium term”. The hotel team and management under General Manager Birgitt Ullerich will remain. The hotel can also be booked as a partner hotel in the future via the Kempinski website and it will remain part of the “Global Hotel Alliance” customer loyalty program.
After the new owner company also had to file for bankruptcy in November 2018, the commercial property investor Aroundtown SA acquired the hotel in December 2018 .
Furnishing
The hotel has 246 rooms and 55 suites as well as three restaurants , a large bar , the palace hall, an indoor swimming pool and a fitness area. The hotel was renovated in 2008 for around ten million euros. Nevertheless, it lost the status of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) in 2009: the reasons were quality deficiencies at the time.
Known guests
The Kempinski (colloquially: "Kempi") was a meeting place for celebrities and film stars as early as the 1950s. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni , Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas , Roger Moore , Nobel laureate Otto Hahn , the Dalai Lama and dream ship producer Wolfgang Rademann resided in the "Kempi" as did US President Ronald Reagan . Hildegard Knef lived with her daughter Christina “Tinta” and at times with her husband, the English actor David Cameron , in the 200 m² Bellevue Suite in the 1970s for a daily price of 650 marks . Harald Juhnke was a regular at the “Kempinski Grill”. In August 2016, the French film director Claude Lanzmann was horrified to find that the state of Israel was not on the hotel's telephone prefix list. This has now been corrected.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Kempi has lost its name, but is being lovingly renovated. In: BZ , December 18, 2017
- ↑ The Kempinski is now only called “Bristol Berlin”. In: Der Tagesspiegel , December 16, 2017
- ↑ Dishes with a story in the Kempi grill on the Kudamm . In: Berliner Morgenpost , January 6, 2014.
- ↑ From hostels to luxury hotels in Berlin vie for guests. At: n-tv , September 2, 2010
- ↑ The demolition of the Hotel Kempinski is becoming more and more concrete. In: Berliner Morgenpost , June 24, 2015
- ↑ Berlin's modernizers are shaking the legendary “Kempinski”. In: NZZ , December 1, 2015
- ↑ Bristol Berlin no longer with Kempinski. In: Allgemeine Hotel- und Gastronomie-Zeitung , December 13, 2017
- ↑ Hotel Bristol changes hands . In: Berliner Woche , December 14, 2018
- ^ Dispute: Kempinski Hotels in Dresden and Eltville resign from Leading Hotels ( Memento from April 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Grande Dame on the Kudamm . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 3, 2012.
- ↑ Hildchen, hold on! In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1975 ( online ).
- ^ Tired of life: Kempinski concierge hanged himself . In: Berliner Kurier , February 4, 2000.
- ↑ Israel does not exist here. In: FAZ , August 11, 2016
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 11.9 " N , 13 ° 19 ′ 37.6" E