Sanctums for The

TravelDestination 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 132 AsiaSpa March/April 2014 March/April 2014 AsiaSpa 133 TravelDestination 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 134 AsiaSpa March/April 2014 March/April 2014 AsiaSpa 135 TravelDestination 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.

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