After a major renovation that has taken three years and 254 million euros (352 million dollars), the Savoy Hotel in London reopens its doors on Sunday to inaugurate a new era of luxury without sacrificing the Edwardian and Art Deco style that made him famous worldwide.
The Savoy, the first luxury hotel opened in London, shocked the late nineteenth century also be the first hotel in London with elevators, electricity and toilets virtually all rooms.
house famous for movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and Errol Flynn in 2007 had to close down for the first time in its 118 year history to start a facelift with a planned duration of 17 months and that eventually reached more than three years.
With the auction of more than 3,000 pieces of furniture of the establishment, which raised 2.5 million euros (3.4 billion), the Savoy began a reform aimed at returning to the hotel luster and prestige lost in recent decades.
The architect Pierre Yves Rochon has been the architect of redesign of the interiors of the hotel, which features in their rooms with the latest technologies, such as mirrors that turn into TV screens.
The remodeling of the facility one day directed César Ritz, the Swiss founder of the luxury hotel chain Ritz, has cost more than double what planners initially calculated a budget of 100 million pounds (158, $ 7 million) - and has not been without its setbacks, as recognized by the general director of Savoy, Kiara MacDonald.
Every extra day that the hotel has been closed, their owners have left to earn 500,000 pounds ($ 793,812) and in the three years that have lasted the works, only 75 of the 650 employees have remained loyal to the house.
However, MacDonald is optimistic and believes that the work "will exceed the expectations of the public and make the Savoy regain its rightful place among the great hotels of the world."
To achieve this ambitious goal, more than a thousand craftsmen and artists have worked on the renovation of the decoration of a building in the Edwardian style, typically British, shares the spotlight with the Art Deco since 1929 the hotel managers opted for this current to reparations after the First World War.
Since then, the imposing label "Savoy" (Savoy) stainless steel crowns the brief entry-only access to the facility via the United Kingdom through which vehicles drive on the right-joined to the front of marble and the statue of Peter II, Count of Savoy, built in the same place his palace, destroyed during the revolt of the peasants in 1381.
In recent months reform, a curtain that was promoting the musical "Legally Blonde" had the iconic hotel entrance, located between the Strand and the Thames, a way of getting additional funding for a hotel that still are rumors of a possible sale .
The hotel has changed hands four times in recent years and will compete in its reopening with the opening of a Waldorf-Astoria in West London and a Four Seasons near Hyde Park, in order to attract customers rates do not fall below the 350 pounds (555 dollars) a night.
its favor has 268 rooms and 174 -94 Art Deco Edwardian-style, royal suite costs 10,000 pounds ($ 15,885) a night in exchange for sleeping in a bed that cost 25,000 pounds ($ 39,714), and a rooftop pool, one of the few such features in London.
But undoubtedly the biggest asset is its history of Savoy. The French impressionist Monet portrayed the view of the Thames that can be enjoyed from some rooms, and Marilyn Monroe gave there his first press conference in the United Kingdom.
politician Winston Churchill was one of his regular customers during the Second World War, and the writers George Bernard Shaw and HG Wells were among his clientele American Bar
Nothing can match a legend to an establishment in the birthday party of King Edward VII of water filled central courtyard that guests could dine on shelves and feel in the very Venice.
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