LONDON’S WONDER HOTEL

Hokitika Guardian, 12 June 1931, Page 3

LONDON’S WONDER HOTEL

THE DORCHESTER. ELIMINATION OF NOISE. LONDON, April 18. Visitor** to London oueu ui. t.*v, ol a vu > smiii l ana exclusive liolel. J here aie goou iC-'i, ~u,n ioitaule liuic’ls m pion^t, *"due i.otn.n. super-modern and amazingly expensive*, ■nicy' e.iii make uns conipi<..i .1 u ...n.-ia. * i.e iJOiches.er, wlucii »,is opened to-day, is a uiea-m icm.-e tiu*. It is a marvellous achievement, a* nearly perfect as aiivlning can beComfort and beauty are the keynotes of til is lovely puuo. ia the vc.y entrance hall, it is as thougn the Spirit of Spring has waved her natid. so deliciously blended are the greens and fellows of early summer. The ballroom is flooded with a mystic pale pink light under which everyone looks radiant. There are gorgeous mirrors round the wall with "crystal chandeliers jutting out from them, thus giving twice the light and twice tm* beauty. Every bedroom is different, every sitting-room different. ’ Each suitlias a predominant eoloiiT, .and in that colour'The 'bathroom belonging to it. is decorated, tiled walls, hath, hand basin, everything. Thus there are daffodil bathrooms, blue bathrooms, a>u; green and mauve bathrooms, the range of colour seems unending.

FOOD, DRINK AND MUSIC. One of the opening i uiic*. oii.s a ; t ui Porehcst. r, which surely ought to'- have been named the Dorchester Palace’, was a %luimneoii ae whu.li lue giu-.u-,-, uimi bered about five hundred. If the management is to bd juugtd on the arrangement and Sti-vue at ills p.wU, then the food, dr.nn, attendance aum music vv.il] be as wonderful as the gr-ai budding itself. Hie Hist speech was made by Sir Francis Towle, who is one of the prin- • .pie movers in the vulture. He stressed the point that the hotel was bulk with British matuvaJ by Br-tish labour. H*,re he was challenged by an 'Lilian waiter, and ix plied that 79V per cent of the employees in the hotel are British. Sir Francis welcomed Mr J. 11. Thomas, Secretary for the Dominions, who had come, he said, to wish them will in their bid for tourists* for Britainy As usual, All* Thomas made a most amusing nply, which was ful>v.ed by a short speech by Mr Robert M’Alpirie, who spoke in the absence of his father, Sir Malcolm ’M*Alpine, the contractor, who, it will be remembered, was responsible for Wembley Exh.bition. In discussing the speed at which the -building was erected, he- paid great tribute ..to his workmen who, in order ■ i.upirt • the on lumg by the stipulated' tdatle,'" had'’ had' r to?stftrt work as early as three o'clock in the morning. •He said that the hotel was his father's dream in reinforced concrete. It ‘is so that in . order to enlarge it, all they would have to do would he to jack it up and bu.lt beneath the ground floor. UNRIVALLED VIEW. After lunch everyone was invited to view the hotel. .Most people took the lift to the roof. From it there is a h. > venly view with the park in the foreground, and further away the spires '.and towers oi south-west London. Nearly everyone walked clown, rambling about the different floors, examining suites, bedrooms, bathrooms anil pantries. There are Chinese and Spanish rooms, old English rooms, and really modern ones. There are wardrobes where the 'act of opening the door turns on- an interior light; there are in the smaller rooms -writing tables that let down from the walls; there • are telephones everywhere; indeed, there are all the luxuries that money can buy, and the mind of man devise.

On the. ground floor there is a Spanish sherry bar where the scarlet leather chairs are not so definitely scarlet as to clash with 'any colour scheme in dress, and where the green balcony wlvspers of guitars and sombreros. It is delightful. In the basement is a women's Turkish bath ; a most beautifully-ap-pointed hair-dressing salon, where the the assistants wear the most intriguing yellow overalls ; and a gymnasium where the energetic can ride imitation horsos or bicycles, row, or just do slimming exercises to the music of a gramophone. WHAT IT COSTS. New Zealand, with its rebuilding plans in the earthquake area, will note that this palatial edifice is of reinforced concrete. It is faced with polished Terrazzo cubes of marbles and corncoloured cement, and contains no fewer .than 1500 miles of steel rods. Sir Francis Towle has said that London’s hotel life for the last three years ; s drifting towards its principal lung— Hyde Park. His idea is an hotel d'i luxe away from the noise'of the metropolis, and iin order to emphasise this - feature be. lias had the floors lined with blankets of seaweed, and the walls covered with two .inches of cork, the two processes well calculated to make it the most silent hotel in the world. And that, in a no : sy world, is a boon on“ too often seeks in vain, especially in the Very midst of a great metropolis. What does all this cost ? You may sleep in suitable magnificence for £l% a week—that, (park you. does not include meals and extras. The cheapest rooms work out at twelve guineas a week. Tt will cost you 8s 6d to lunch or 12s 6d to dine.