Aromal V
Google
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners.
The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous, and other entertainers (who were also often guests) included George Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Noël Coward. Other famous guests have included Edward VII, Oscar Wilde, Enrico Caruso, Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Harry Truman, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, John Wayne, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Bette Midler, the Beatles and many others. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel.
The hotel is managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has 267 guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building. History
Site
The House of Savoy was the ruling family of Savoy, descended from Humbert I, Count of Sabaudia (or "Maurienne"), who became count in 1032. The name Sabaudia evolved into "Savoy" (or "Savoie"). Count Peter (or Piers or Piero) of Savoy (d. 1268) was the maternal uncle of Eleanor of Provence, queen-consort of Henry III of England, and came with her to London.
The Savoy Palace
King Henry III made Peter Earl of Richmond and, in 1246, gave him the land between the Strand and the River Thames, where Peter built the Savoy Palace in 1263. Peter gave the palace and the manor of the Savoy to the Congregation of Canons of the Great Saint Bernard, and the palace became the "Great Hospital of St Bernard de Monte Jovis in Savoy". The manor was subsequently purchased by Queen Eleanor, who gave the site to her second son, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Edmund's great-granddaughter, Blanche, inherited the site. Her husband, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, built a magnificent palace that was burned down by Wat Tyler's followers in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. King Richard II was still a child, and his uncle John of Gaunt was the power behind the throne, and so a main target of the rebels.
