London Accommodation Historical London Hotels The SavoyThe Savoy
Built by opera impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte, to service the adjacent Savoy Theatre, The Savoy Hotel was conceived to offer the last word in luxury. D'Oyly Carte
was the manager of operetta composers, Gilbert and Sullivan and the recent widespread success of 'The Mikado' allowed him to channel extra funds into building a luxury hotel. He summoned Cesar Ritz (who later founded the Ritz in Piccadilly) and Auguste Escoffier ('king of chefs and chef of kings') to form his management team and so its reputation began. Among the many memorable stunts undertaken in the name of excess, the Savoy Hotel court was flooded to allow Caruso to sing from a gondola and the hotel's dancefloor would rise to a height of six feet, with the dancers still stepping the Charleston. The Savoy had the largest diameter pipework and plumbing of any building (allowing baths to be filled in two minutes) and was the first building in the world to implement electric lighting and lifts (elevators).
Monet and Whistler were guests (Monet's Houses of Parliament series, was painted from the balcony of his suite), as were Oscar Wilde, Ivor Novello, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, among many many others.
The Savoy Court is the only street in Britain where you drive on the right, altered by an Act of Parliament. The theory is that Hackney cabs had to lean back and open the passenger door from the front, but this doesn't bear up to scrutiny. The driver could reach either side just as easily and the side you exit would depend on which side of the street you entered and the direction the cab was pointing. It's more likely to derive from historical protocol, which determined that unaccompanied women should sit behind the driver. Then they would have to approach on the right-hand side to avoid stepping into the street.
The Savoy reopened for business on 10.10.10 after several years of refurbishment. As a former employee of the Hotel (Management Trainee), I'm hoping to visit soon after it opens. There's hardly a corner of the hotel I don't know intimately (and haven't 'buffed' to a high shine), so am looking forward to seeing what's been done. There are hundreds of interesting stories associated with the Savoy Hotel, but the one which sticks in my mind was a newspaper article where, undercover, a pair of journalists had stayed at the top London hotels (Savoy, Dorchester, Berkeley, Claridges, Connaught and the Grosvenor House). The idea was to see which represented the pinnacle of class and service. At each hotel they ordered a meal, had some clothing washed, room service and threw in a few curve-balls, like organising a baby-sitter with no notice. Each hotel, more or less sailed through the challenges, but The Savoy won on the tiniest detail which the others couldn't match. Having a suit and shirt cleaned by the Savoy's floor valet, the items were returned in good time. When getting dressed the male journalist was buttoning the cuff of his shirt, when he noticed that one of the double-cuff buttons that had been missing, had been replaced by a more-or-less exact match. The part that clinched the win and stayed with him for some time afterwards - was that the valet had not thought to bring it to his attention. It was the kind of everyday service to be expected at the hotel.
The Savoy Hotel, Strand, WC2R 0EU.
Charing Cross or Embankment Tube.
Call: 020 7836 4343
