The roaring twenties was a heyday for more than just flappers, speakeasies, and Louis Armstrong. It’s also when some of the world’s finest five-star hotels were born. So what was happening 100 years ago that enabled so many elegant properties to thrive?
Then as now, technological advancement paved the way. Better design and construction techniques allowed for suites with their own private bathrooms, lit by electric lights instead of gas or candles. But Bjorn Hanson, a travel consultant and hospitality professor at New York University, points to another important factor: The world’s wealthiest were traveling en masse for the first time and refused to sacrifice comfort on the road. “Lengths of hotel stays were weeks or months, because long-distance travel was by train or ship,” Hanson explains. “Hotels evolved, with larger rooms and more services, to serve those travelers. They were seeking accommodations equivalent to their homes.”
To celebrate the recent (or approaching) centenaries of these enduring landmarks, we’re challenging you to match the property to the description seen below. And because they’ve continued to inspire newly constructed hotels, we’ve also thrown in a ringer that’s barely a decade old. No googling!
A) La Mamounia, Marrakech
La Mamounia
B) Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles
Jason Frank Rothenberg
C) Le Bristol, Paris
Le Bristol
D) The Biltmore, Coral Gables, Fla.
The Biltmore
E) Belmond Copacabana Palace, Rio De Janiero
Belmond
F) The Beaumont Mayfair, London
The Beaumont
G) Gleneagles, Auchterarder, Scotland
GLEESONPAULINO
H) The Breakers, Palm Beach, Fla.
The Breakers
1. This Moorish-inspired fantasia opened in 1926, with dramatic 25-foot-high frescoed walls, immense fireplaces, and vaulted ceilings that made it look more like a movie set than a hotel. The chevron-shaped pool was tailor-made for synchronized swimming.
2. Josephine Baker celebrated her 50th anniversary as an entertainer at this property, which opened in April 1925. It takes its name from the noble title of the famous 18th-century traveler Bishop Frederick Hervey. An earlier property in the same building hosted President Ulysses S. Grant as he toured the world after his term ended.
3. This hotel was intended to mark the centennial of its country’s independence but opened a year too late—in 1923. It became a symbol of its home city, and its salons and lounges were even replicated inch for inch for a movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
4. Don’t let the Art Deco–inspired interiors fool you. It may have a restaurant named after an F. Scott Fitzgerald protagonist, but this 101-room hotel opened in 2014 on the site of a former parking garage.
5. When this sprawling estate bowed in 1924, it was proclaimed the Eighth Wonder of the World. Its earliest guests came here to play golf and hunt grouse after spending the summer social season yachting at Cowes and playing polo in Deauville.
6. It cost $7 million to build this Italian Renaissance–style hotel, which began welcoming guests in December 1926. It had to be rebuilt after a guest left her curling iron plugged in as she rushed out to attend a ball, which started a fire.
7. This place opened as a high-end apartment building just eight months before the crash of 1929. The owner had to sell it in 1931, and its new operator saw that its discreet design details—such as an underground garage with direct elevators to the rooms, bypassing the lobby—were ideal for privacy-craving celebrities.
8. This palatial hotel is as famous for its lavish grounds (a gift from the country’s ruler to his favorite son) as it is for its ornate, elaborate rooms. It opened in 1923 on the site of a royal rose garden, filled with 5,000 bushes.
Answers: 1-D, 2-C, 3-E, 4-F, 5-G, 6-H, 7-B, 8-A
