Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok is a five-star hotel in Bangkok owned by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. Located on the banks of the Chao Phraya River at 48 Oriental Avenue, the hotel is well-known for the excellence of its service, which consistently places it in surveys among the world's best hotels. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel is the number one hotel in Bangkok.
History
When Siam opened up to foreign trade after the signing of the Bowring Treaty the sailors that populated the ships which conveyed this trade though Bangkok required accommodation on shore. To meet this demand Captain Dyers, an American and his partner J.E. Barnes opened a hotel called the Oriental Hotel. This burnt down in 1865.[1].
Several years later a partnership of Danish captains opened a replacement hotel.[2]. In the 1970’s the board of the Oriental Hotel decided with the opening of the new River Wing, upon 1876 as the official establishment date of the Oriental Hotel.
H. N. Andersen
In 1881 29 year old Hans Niels Andersen, a Danish businessman bought the premises.[3] His various business ventures lead to him becoming a much respected member of the Western community in Siam. Andersen identified a need for a respectable hotel with good accommodation, a bar and a western menu to meet the needs of travellers and businessmen visiting to Siam.
Encouraged by Prince Prisdang Jumsai, Hans Niels Andersen formed a partnership with , Peter Andersen and Frederick Kinch to build a luxury hotel. Designed by Cardu & Rossi, a team of local Italian architects, the Oriental was the first luxury hotel in Siam. The hotel opened on 19 May 1887 with 40 rooms and features which at the time had never been seen in Siam outside of a royal palace: a second floor (during a time of single storey bungalows), carpeted hallways, smoking and ladies rooms, a billiards room and a bar capable of seating 50 patrons. [4]. To ensure the success of the restaurant and a satisfactory level of service the owners lured the chef and butler away from the French Consulate to work at the hotel.
The first major event that the hotel hosted was a grand banquet on 24 May 1888 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. After personally inspecting the hotel’s facilities in December 1890 King Chulalongkorn decided the hotel was up to the standard necessary to host visiting royalty. The hotel’s first royal guests were the entourage of Crown Prince Nicholas of Russia, (later Tsar Nicholas) in April 1891.
A succession of owners followed until Marie Maire took over the ownership in 1910. She immediately went to work revamping the hotel. She sold it in 1932. During the Second World War the hotel was leased to the Japanese Army who used it as an officers club (who under the management of the Imperial Hotel of Tokyo). At the end of the war it was used to house liberated Allied prisoners of war, who in the belief that it was a Japanese property ransacked the building.
Germaine Krull
At the end of the war a six person partnership each contributed US$250 to buy the hotel. The partnership consisted of Germaine Krull (1897-1985), Prince Bhanu, General Chai Prateepasen, Pote Sarasin a Thai lawyer and John Webster and Jim Thompson, two Americans who had served in the Organization for Strategic Security (OSS) and who had stayed on in Thailand. Krull took the position of manager in 1947, despite no prior experience in the hotel field. Born in France, she had been best known as a photographer during the 1920s before service in the Pacific as a war correspondent for Agence France Presse. Badly rundown after its wartime service the partnership immediately began restoration and restocking of the hotel which offered to put Thompson’s an opportunity to use his architectural and artistic abilities.
The hotel reopened for business on 12 June 1947. Krull turned out to be a natural hotelier and during her reign restored the hotel to it position as the premier hotel in Thailand. Thompson soon left the partnership over a plan to build a new wing, though he stayed on in residence at the hotel for some time. To complete with popular clubs and a new local bar called Chez Eve, Krull established the Bamboo Bar, which soon became one of the leading bars in Bangkok [6].
In 1958 the 10 storey Garden Wing was built. It featured the city’s first elevator and was home to the Le Normandie Restaurant.[2]. In 1967 fearful that Thailand would fall to the communists Krull sold her share to Italthai which at the time was well on its way to becoming one of the country’s most significant mercantile groups eventually totally some 60 companies involved in almost all aspects of the Thai economy.
Italthai
Italthai had been founded in the mid-fifties by Giorgio Berlingieri, an Italian born in Genoa and Dr Chaijudh Karnasuta, a Thai. Berlingieri felt that the Oriental had began to rest on its laurels and had dropped behind its competitors. He wanted to develop the Oriental into one of the best hotels in the world. Too involved with his various businesses to devote time to the project Berlingieri in November 1967 appointed 30 year old Kurt Wachtveitl (1937 -), at that time manager of Nipa Lodge, (a hotel that Italthai owned in Pattaya) as general manager of the Oriental.
In 1972 the hotel acquired an adjacent property upon which it erected the 350 room River Wing.
Mandarin Oriental
In the early 1970s Jardine Matheson owners of the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong set up the Mandarin Hotels Group and decided to expand into Southeast Asia. In 1974 after negotiations in which Wachtveitl, was instrumental they bought a 49% stake in the Oriental Bangkok and the company was renamed the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.
In September 2005 a major refurbishment of the hotel was completed.
As of 2007 Kurt Wachtveitl is still general manager of the hotel, a reign of 40 years.
In September 2008, the hotel formally changed its name from The Oriental, Bangkok to Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok.
The Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok has a sister resort in Chiang Mai, Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi, Chiang Mai.
Famous hotel guests
The hotel is a favorite of celebrity visitors to Bangkok. Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward Graham Greene, John le Carré, Barbara Cartland, and James A. Michener are among the famous authors who have stayed at the Oriental.
Other famous guests have included Neil Armstrong, Lauren Bacall, George H. W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Václav Havel, Audrey Hepburn, Mick Jagger, Henry Kissinger, Helmut Kohl, David Beckham, Niki Lauda, Sophia Loren, Yehudi Menuhin, Richard Nixon, Pelé, Queen Sofia of Spain, Princess Diana and Prince Charles, Omar Sharif and Elizabeth Taylor.
The hotel
The hotel contains 358 rooms plus 35 suites.
The only part of the original 19th century hotel is the 2-storey Authors’ Residence whose upper storey houses suites named after Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward and James Michener. The River Wing contains deluxe two bedroom suites named and themed after former guest or personages associated with the hotel including: Barbara Cartland, Gore Vidal, Graham Greene, Wilbur Smith, John le Carré, Jim Thompson, Graham Greene, Captain Anderson, Norman Mailer, Giorgio Berlingieri and Thai author Kukrit Pramoj. Other suites are named after ships associated with the early Bangkok trade such as Otago (once captained by Joseph Conrad), Melita, Vesatri and Natuna.
Dining and drinking
* Riverside Terrace.
* The Verandah Coffeeshop.
* Le Normandie. Offers French cuisine.
* Lord Jim’s. Offers seafood cuisine.
* The China House. Offers Chinese cuisine.
* The Bamboo Bar.
* Sala Rim Naam Restaurant. Offers Thai cuisine.
* Terrrace Rim Naam.
* The Author's Lounge, on the ground floor of the Author's Residence, where afternoon tea is provided.
* Ciao (open from mid-October - end of May)
Hotel facilities and services
* The Oriental Spa. Opened in 1993. This is located in the Ayurvedic Penthouse on the opposite bank of the Chao Phraya from the hotel, across which patrons are conveyed on the hotel‘s private ferry
* Thai Cooking School. Opened in the 1990s.
* A hotel private ferry is consistently in rotation between the sky train boat dock and the hotel dock for its guest.
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