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Sanctums for the

Inspiration doesn’t always come easy, but sometimes a cosy hotel room is all a writer needs to get that burstScribe of creative energy Writer Kate Whitehead 130 AsiaSpa March/April 2014 March/April 2014 AsiaSpa 131 TravelDestination

this page: The American Bar at The Savoy, a favourite among writers. opposite page: The Savoy stands on the banks of the Thames. Opening page: The Monet Personality Suite at The Savoy is the perfect room for any writer Geoffrey Chaucer. For several years in the late 1360s – long before Frette sheets and room service – the original Savoy Palace was home for Chaucer, and he is thought to have composed some of The Canterbury Tales there. The Savoy Palace was destroyed in the Peasants Revolt of 1381 and the site redeveloped several times over subsequent centuries. The creation of the hotel itself is in large part due to an artistic success. Richard D’Oyly Carte was an English talent agent and theatrical impresario. In 1875 he brought together dramatist WS Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan and persuaded them to write the first of the Savoy Operas. The operas were so well received that D’Oyly Carte built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to better stage them. It was a groundbreaking venue – the world’s first theatre to be lit entirely by electricity. Riding off the back of his success with the operas, he toured America with them. It was in the US that he experienced the luxury of modern and comfortable hotels and determined to build one in London for his American opera fans when they visited. It was a winning combination and today, the hotel still stands beside the Savoy Theatre. very writer needs a room of their own. But this writer-hotel relationship isn’t a Understanding the value of strong No one would argue with that, but one-way affair. For centuries, hotels have literary connections, in 2002 The Savoy Ethat’s not to say the room needs to benefitted from their liaisons with the became the first luxury hotel in London to be a permanent, fixed address. Sometimes literary community. Highbrow or lowbrow, have its own ‘Writer in Residence’ scheme. a room rented for just a night is all that comical or scholarly, it doesn’t matter what The first writer to take up this honour is needed to find inspiration or polish a sort of books the author produces, as long was Fay Weldon. It was an enviable job manuscript. No doubt Virginia Woolf would as they are a name. A well-known writer on description: three months in a river-front have agreed. the premises, whether they are holed up in suite with breakfast included and no Writers have been holing themselves up their room like Rowling or propping up the obligation to write anything specific. in hotels to work ever since books have been bar as was Oscar Wilde’s way, lends a hotel The following year the raucous published. JK Rowling may have started calibre and the effect is enduring. Australian wit Kathy Lette was took up the writing Harry Potter in Edinburgh cafes, mantle with nothing expected of her but but when the series was well established The Savoy, London to attend four literary dinners and “swan and she was under deadline pressure it was When it comes to literary heritage, it’s hard about being a bit witty” as she put it. She the Scottish capital’s finest hotels that she to beat The Savoy. One of London’s best- loved every minute of it and writing in her retreated to – she had more than enough established hotels, it has links to writers blog she said: “A writer’s life is the opposite money to pay for them by then. that stretch way back, even before the hotel of glamorous. Normally we feel about as A hotel stay is the chance to escape received its first paying guests in 1889. valued as a giveaway shampoo sachet in a domestic duties and the demands of a Understanding the value of being associated fashion magazine. But living at the Savoy, family to focus on the nitty-gritty of getting with the literary elite, today The Savoy goes a staff of 500 were at my beck and call…Is words on the page. Chambermaids and out of its way to make sure that the leading it any wonder I was smiling as smugly as a room service mean there’s no excuse for scribes are made welcome. canary filled cat?” procrastinating, but if the dreaded writer’s The Savoy’s literary tradition goes Years later she told the Guardian that it block does strike, there’s always the comfort back to the Middle Ages and the man was the best four months of her life, despite of the bar downstairs. considered the Father of English literature, the fact that “the only thing I wrote was

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heavily on his time in Asia and at sea for own terrace overlooking the Chao Phraya his fiction. Among the best known are The River, it is one of a number of suites named Shadow Line – inspired by his journeys after an author who has visited, each suite between Bangkok and Singapore – and designed to reflect the personality of the Lord Jim, which tells the tale of a young writer and with plenty of their books on British seaman coming to terms with having the shelves. abandoned a ship in distress and was ranked The John Le Carré suite has a very by the Modern Library as one of the best 100 masculine quality while the Barbara English-language novels of the 20th century. Cartland suite – named after the grand dame The hotel is proud of its bond with of romance fiction – is painted pink and Conrad. The Mandarin Oriental’s seafood very feminine. Dame Barbara based two restaurant is called Lord Jim and it has of her novels in Bangkok after her first stay named one of its colonial suites after him. and even named one of her heroines after Decorated in a palette of blues and one of the staff. creams, with dark wood furnishings and its The list of authors who have stayed

clockwise from LEFT: Impressive view of the Thames and the London Eye from The Savoy; The Heritage Authors’ Suite at the Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok; The Savoy has a long literary tradition

cheques, for champagne.” Although that dinner. When the dinner was finished Joel Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok might be somewhat of an exaggeration thanked his guests for coming and as he was Historic hotels all have their own intriguing because not long after she completed her saying his goodbyes his superstitious friend stories such as Kaspar. It’s little wonder novel Dead Sexy and launched it at the said the first person to leave the table would that writers are drawn to them – and if not hotel in 2005. be unlucky and the first to die. Joel laughed the hotel’s stories, then those of the other In 2005 came Frank McCourt, best the comment off, but a few weeks later he patrons. Joseph Conrad, a Polish navy known for the heartbreaking memoir about was shot dead in Johannesburg. man, spent his free time in Bangkok at The life in rural Ireland in the 1930s, Angela’s News of Joel’s death was much discussed Oriental, as it was known then. He never Ashes. Life in The Savoy must have been a in London and for some time, whenever actually stayed at the hotel, preferring to world away from the grim days in pre-war there were 13 guests at a Savoy dinner, a sleep on his ship the Otago that was moored Limerick. And the last writer to enjoy the member of staff sat at the table to avoid within staggering distance, but he was a programme was Michael Morpurgo in 2006, the unlucky number. A better solution regular at the bar and enjoyed swapping who was inspired by Kaspar, The Savoy’s was realised in 1926: an architect was stories with fellow drinkers. black cat sculpture, to write a children’s commissioned to create a two-foot model of In his novella Falk that was published book, Kaspar, Prince of Cats. a black cat. The cat was named Kaspar and in 1901, some years after he’d left the navy The Kaspar sculpture itself has an to this day whenever a 14th guest is required to write full-time, he recalled those days at interesting story. In the late 1800s South at the Savoy Grill he sits in a chair, a napkin the Oriental: “We talked of wrecks, of short African diamond magnate Woolf Joel held tied around his neck, and is served every rations and of heroism…and not and then a banquet for 14 guests at The Savoy. At the course. Last year the hotel’s new Art Deco falling silent and together, we gazed past last minute a guest cancelled and one of the restaurant was named after him, Kaspar’s the sights of the river.” party remarked that left an unlucky 13 for Seafood Bar & Grill. www.fairmont.com Safely ensconced in England he drew

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at the hotel is a Who’s Who of Literature. terrace overlooking the swift river where couple who honeymoon with their new Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, we have drinks every evening watching the partners at the same hotel, it is still playing James Michener and Noël Coward all have liver-coloured water swirling by and tiny at theatres in London. suites named after them and there are many steam tugs hauling rows of barges up the Another playwright, George Bernard more who are remembered in the reading river against the tide.” Shaw, also stayed at the hotel, but it is the room: Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, www.mandarinoriental.com American writer Emily Hahn who made a George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, George bigger impression and not just because she Bernard Shaw, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Fairmont Peace Hotel, was a regular at the bar. Hahn has a string Conan Doyle, Edith Wharton, Dorothy Shanghai of novels to her name, the best known is Sayers, the list goes on. And, as you’d No surprise that some of the authors who The Soong Sisters. She lived in Shanghai expect, works by all these writers are stayed at The Oriental in Bangkok also from the mid-1930s through to the Japanese available for guests to borrow in the library. stayed at the Peace Hotel in Shanghai – as invasion of Hong Kong in 1941 and became clockwise from LEFT: Today, writers looking for inspiration today, they were among the most prestigious Spacious living room a close friend of Victor Sassoon, who owned can do as Noël Coward did and sit on hotels in Asia. Noël Coward, so moved by in the Arthurs’ Suite at the hotel. the hotel’s terrace beside the river. The the Chao Phraya River, was equally inspired the Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok; Fairmont A quirky and outspoken writer, she buildings along the riverbank may have by the Bund in Shanghai. Peace Hotel, Shanghai is invariably arrived with her pet gibbon, Mr changed, but the river itself is very much Named the ‘Cathay Hotel’ when it was another writers’ retreat; Mills, in tow. Mr Mills would sit with her at tastefully decorated suite like it was in the English playwright’s day. opened on the Bund in 1929, it was the at Fairmont Peace Hotel, the bar and if she was invited to a dinner Conrad noted in his journal: “There is a personal vision of Victor Sassoon and in Shanghai party he would arrive dressed in a dinner jacket and a diaper and take a chair at the table. In her book China to Me, Hahn recalls its day was referred to as the ‘Claridge’s her wild days at the hotel: “I might meet a of the East’. It was renamed the Peace girl at the Cathay, with drinks first in the Hotel in 1956 when it was paired with the lounge; that meant we would pick up men neighbouring Palace Hotel. and make a party of it.” Noël Coward was among the first big- Years later it was the American journalist name authors to stay at the Cathay Hotel. Edgar Snow who made waves when he Suffering from the flu, he checked into Room stayed in 1960 en route to a meeting with 314 at the end of December 1929. He made Chairman Mao Zedong. He was given a good use of his time and completed his play, prestigious corner room overlooking the Private Lives. A comedy about a divorced Bund. The room has since been renamed

136 AsiaSpa March/April 2014 March/April 2014 AsiaSpa 137 TravelDestination this page: Views from the Corinthia Hotel London’s Writer’s Penthouse. opposite page: When the writer’s block strikes, head to The Northall Bar at the Corinthia Hotel for a drink

the American Suite. In 2007 the hotel was commandeered for use as Government closed for a major renovation and reopened offices and then the Ministry of Defence in 2010 as the Fairmont Peace Hotel. It was took it over in the 1940s. The best-known a sensitive restoration that preserved the employee at the Ministry Defence – albeit Art Deco features and the American Suite a fictional one – was a certain Mr Bond is much as it was when Snow stayed. The and in the James Bond comic strip the original dark wood panelling in the dining artist Yaroslav Horak often depicted the room and living room remains and of course Metropole Building as MI6 headquarters. it still has that impressive view of the Bund. So when the much-anticipated Bond movie The writing desk is beside the fireplace – Skyfall was released in 2012, it made sense yes, a fireplace – an ideal place for Snow to that it was launched at the Corinthia Hotel prepare for his groundbreaking interview (he London. James Bond fans who visit the was the first Western journalist to interview Corinthia will recognise the street beside Mao) and perhaps make notes for The Other the hotel, Whitehall Place, which featured Side of the River. www.fairmont.com in an action sequence in the movie. The Corinthia has all the ingredients to Corinthia Hotel London nurture the soul of a thirsty writer – there’s If a well-situated writing desk in a the long history, the mystery and intrigue comfortable room, perhaps with a view of and to top it all off a Writer’s Penthouse. a river, is key to getting the creative juices This sumptuous two-storey apartment at the flowing, then Corinthia Hotel London has top of the hotel is the ultimate temporary perhaps the best writer’s retreat in London. residence for an author. There’s a double- Although only a couple of years old, height lounge lined with bookshelves and the Corinthia Hotel London has a history a limestone fireplace, the perfect place to stretching back to 1885 when the Gordon entertain. And when it comes down to the Hotels company built the Metropole Hotel. hard graft of writing, there are a number of Located beside the Thames River at the end places to settle: perhaps the antique writing of Northumberland Avenue, for several bureau in the lounge, the roof terrace, the decades it was one of the capital’s most bath with views over London or at the desk glamorous hotels, playing host to European in the bedroom. Set in a small internal royalty, celebrities and writers of the day. But balcony overlooking the reading room, it was its great location – close to the West this desk isn’t just well positioned; it’s End, but also to the Houses of Parliament huge – a whopping two metres long. That’s and Whitehall – that spelt the end of its a generous amount of space for a writer to days as a hotel. spread out and craft an intriguing tale. During both World War I and II it was www.corinthia.com

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