Dorchester Hotel

From ArticleWorld

The Dorchester Hotel strategically situated as it is in the very heart of West End London, is one of the very best hotels in the City. Patronized by the rich and famous, celebrities and business men alike, The Dorchester is often considered the perfect grand hotel. It has the reputation of being ultra modern in its convenience but traditional in its environment, i.e. having the right combination of both worlds. The Dorchester Hotel is located on Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park.

The ambitious project

The Dorchester, first came into being on 18th of April, 1931. It was the conception of Sir Malcolm McAlpine and Sir Frances Towle, who wanted to build the ‘perfect hotel’ and with this view in mind purchased the old and derelict Dorchester House. They soon had it demolished and commissioned the celebrated Sir Owen Williams to design the new hotel and pledged to call it The Dorchester.

It was one of the initial projects where the large internal spaces are not supported by pillars, constructed as the hotel is with reinforced concrete. Its immense ballroom, with studded and mirrored walls, still invites comment. Two more banquet halls and a spanking new bar were added to Dorchester’s existing structure during the next decade.

The Clientele

The Dorchester has been the haunt of the fashionable set right from the time it originally came into being. Since the time it first opened its doors, back in the 1930s, a large proportion of ‘the elite’ has passed through its eminent doors. Some of the famous names are enumerated below:

• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Winston Churchill
• T.S. Eliot
• Somerset Maugham, and lately
• Elizabeth Taylor, and
• Tom Cruise