History is everywhere in the world’s luxury hotels, past and present. What I love about hotel history is that, like a sumptuous buffet, there’s something for everyone: secret tales about famous names, hidden happenings, societal changes and technological wonders, great events taking place.
Since first getting into their stride in the early 19th century, luxury hotels have evolved and blossomed with the world around them. Crowned heads, celebrities and crooks have all flocked to their warm embrace. Their visitor lists are a microcosm of the last 200 years, sometimes making history, always reflecting it. The stories on this site offer a unique way to touch history.
Cast of characters
The world’s grand hotels have more history than a museum, more mystery than an Agatha Christie novel and more anecdotes than an after-dinner speaker. Among the huge cast of characters are royalty and rulers, politicians and prelates, heroes and hotelkeepers, bartenders and barristers, entrepreneurs and explorers, con artists and crooks, proprietors and prostitutes, writers and religious leaders, news reporters and newly-weds. This website is about these people, the hotels where they stayed and the stories that bind them.
From treaties to tragedies
Hotels provide a canvas for events great and small. Authors and artists create, treaties are written, lovers entwine and sometimes, sadly, lives end. Stars are interviewed, criminals seek refuge, battle plans are laid, letters are written (or at least they were before the digital age), technology is trialled, social barriers are broken, politicians hole up, hedonistic parties are held and publicists protect the stars of screen, stage and song from their adoring fans.
History in the making
History is still being made in hotels such as the Summit on Peace in Ukraine held in the Bürgenstock Resort in Switzerland in June 2024.
Come with me as we wander down gracefully lit corridors, through stately rooms and private suites, and into the back of house areas of hotels great and small, far and near.
Hotel History Expert 