S Kalyana Ramanathan visits Grosvenor House to see why Sahara paid £470 million for this pre-World War II hotel
Whoever said the first impression is the best impression was clearly wrong. Stepping into the main lobby of Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane in Central London, even the most generous of critics would have to say “I have seen better.” It is not that it is bad or unimpressive, but there is very little that offers the shock and awe value which hotels, even in India today, can offer — think of Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel, or even the more modern Shangri-La in New Delhi.
But Grosvenor House is like jazz. You have to invest a little time before you can appreciate its intrinsic charm. The physical beauty of this hotel is not its greatest strength — its strength is its history.
This eight-storey building made quite a stir in London when it first opened for business in 1929. The public and media both made a big fuss about the “monolith” spoiling the flat cityscape of old London. Some even took their angst to the House of Commons. But the issue was put to rest when Sir Edwin Lutyens (who designed British New Delhi) was brought in by the hotel’s owners to put eight pyramid-roofed pavilions on each block of the building. Lutyens was the son-in-law of the then Viceroy of India, so few dared to question his work. Lutyens provided the additions to give this Edwardian building its “New York look”.
Howard Hartley, a 29-year veteran salesman with Grosvenor House, is waiting at the Park Street entrance of the hotel at 4 pm sharp, as agreed. He is my guide for the next hour and comes highly recommended by the communications team. There is very little Hartley will not know about the hotel and its history.
The first stop of this guided tour is, however, the latest addition to the hotel: the JW Steakhouse Cuts. The wooden floor of this shop was specially brought in from a now-closed bakery in Paris. “That particular period wood was needed to lift the ambience,” says Hartley.
The private dining room adjacent to the steakhouse has a much longer history. The walls here are adorned with pictures of the who’s who of the celebrity world, in politics, sports, business and royalty, who have taken a meal there: Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Orson Welles, Jacqueline Kennedy, Henry Kissinger and Ella Fitzgerald. A more modern celebrity visitor is English football star Wayne Rooney.
Of the eight banquet halls in Grosvenor House — they can take 4,500 people at any given time — the Great Room is the most famous. This 3,147 sq metre hall used to be an ice-skating rink until 1934. Today it is the largest banquet hall in the UK, and the second-largest in Europe. A favourite for wedding receptions, this hall hosted 60 Indian weddings last year alone. The most fascinating feature of this hall is the absence of a single central pillar, which provides an uninterrupted view from corner to corner. Renting this room for 24 hours costs nothing less than £20,000, food not included.
The hotel has 494 rooms of different shapes and sizes to accommodate budgets of £250-1,500 a night. The real charm is, however, the staff of 590, drawn from 60 countries. “We can welcome almost any guest in his (or her) mother tongue,” says Hartley, with undisguised pride.
Even though Indian customers account for just 2-3 per cent of Grosvenor’s annual business, the who’s who of Indian business, be it the Ambanis, the Birlas or the Mittals, continue to drop by regularly. You are not likely, however, to find a Tata visiting this hotel, because the Tata group already has its own hotel and top-end restaurant business in London (St James Court). Surprisingly, Hartley is not sure whether Subrata Roy or his family have ever used this hotel.
Can Roy and his team carry the heavy burden of a brand which is so closely intertwined with English society? The general opinion is that, for Sahara, this is just another investment. The new owners are unlikely to do anything that will upset the applecart. Says Hartley, “Like the previous owner, RBS, I am pretty sure Sahara, too, will do its best to protect its investment.”
Sahara insiders, however, say they will do more than just protect the investment. Even before the ink on the deal is dry, big investment plans have been drawn up. New restaurants, a spa and casino, and bigger Indian weddings top the list.
It’s too early to tell, but it’s possible that Sahara may be the landlord who will finally usher Grosvenor House, this World War II relic, into the modern era.
