THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411190066
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: TRAVEL-WISE
SOURCE: STEPHEN HARRIMAN
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
CALL ME OLD-FASHIONED, but I like old-fashioned hotels. With modern amenities, of course.
I found one earlier this year in London's West End: the Victorian-era Langham, reborn recently after a 50-year slumber as the Langham Hilton.
Please, this is not just another Hilton. This is The Langham. It was the talk of London long before Hiltons existed.
The hotel was opened in 1865 with the Prince of Wales - later King Edward VII, Queen Elizabeth II's great-grandfather - doing the honors.
It was then London's biggest building and the city's first great luxury hotel. Truly one of the marvels of the era, it had such modern conveniences as an early form of air conditioning, hot and cold running water in each bathroom, the first hydraulic passenger elevators in the world, its own post office, winter garden, ambassador's audience room, two libraries and a fresh supply of spring water from a 300-foot-deep artesian well.
Designed in a style to reflect a Florentine palace, it had more than 5 miles of carpet cushioning its corridors and assembly rooms, plaster relief ceilings and marble and mosaic floors fashioned by Italian artisams.
International celebrities, statesmen, artists, writers, musicians and exiled royalty stayed here, including Emperor Louis Bonaparte of France and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. The guest book includes the names of Dvorak and Toscanini, Mark Twain, J.B. Priestly, Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham and Oscar Wilde.
Sherlock Holmes dropped by on at least three occasions, when he was working on cases such as ``The Sign of Four,'' ``Lady Frances Carfax'' and ``A Scandal in Bohemia.''
It was at the Langham that Stanley decided to go looking for Livingstone. Wallis Warfield Simpson waited here while King Edward VIII announced he was giving up the throne to marry her.
There's even a ghost. He was featured in a BBC documentary called ``The Ghosts of London.'' He refused to check out of room 333. The story is, a German prince, depressed when his girlfriend dumped him, leaped out of his fourth-floor window shortly before World War I. Staffers claim they see him frequently.
I walked past Room 333, but I saw nothing, heard nothing. He could have just been out at the time.
Over the years, The Langham Hotel came to characterize Victorian pride and respectability. There was a case at the Old Bailey in the 1880s involving a pair of turf swindlers in which a witness testified, ``I knew he must be a perfect gentleman. Why, he had rooms at the Langham.''
It was, in its previous life, the place to be. Seems it still is.
Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford were here last year. Is that big or what? Princess Diana has done lunch here. Steffi Graf checked out the day I checked in.
I say ``in its previous life'' because that life ended abruptly in 1940 when Nazi bombs, probably intended for the BBC headquarters across the street, struck the hotel's 38,000-gallon rooftop water tank and flooded most of the rooms. Extensively damaged, The Langham remained closed for half a century.
In 1991, after a takeover by Hilton International and a makeover costing $140 million, the hotel reopened as the Langham Hilton. This time the Princess of Wales did the honors.
Wherever possible, the old Victorian features were retained - including the elevator cages and, wrapping around them, the broad, low-rise staircases designed to accommodate the long and wide dresses worn by the ladies of that era. Much of the restoration was supervised by government preservation officials.
The guest rooms, reduced in number from the original 600 to 379, are elegantly furnished and decorated in what I think is called French Provincial style. The furniture in my room was American red oak, made in Martinsville, Va.
The highly decorative Palm Court has once again become one of the most fashionable meeting places in London. The Chukka Bar, done up in green and gold, is much as you would expect a gentleman's club to be - and great place to sit around and talk about polo and stuff - and the Tsar's Bar offers caviar with more than 100 vodkas. One from Luxembourg is called Black Death.
The Langham's location, where Regent Street curves around All Souls church and becomes Portland Place, is convenient to the upscale shops along Regent and Oxford Streets. Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square and the theatre district are within easy walking distance, as is Hyde Park to the south and Regent Park to the north.
Guests receive membership to the Regent Park Golf and Tennis School, which claims to be ``probably the oldest golf school in the world.'' It was founded in 1908 by the then Prince of Wales - the one who later would be king for a year before chucking it all for Mrs. Simpson.
The Langham, like almost all hotels in London, offers a number of holiday specials including ``A Night at the Langham'' (Dec. 17 to Jan. 8) that includes room for two and breakfast for 95 pounds (about $150) as well as a number of dinners and teas.
Also, there are five Select Weekend Breaks good throughout the year: Theatre Weekend (room, meals and theatre tickets, about $450 for two), Langham Weekend (room, dinner and breakfast for about $300 for two), Arts of London Weekend (dinner, two nights accommodation, two breakfasts plus tickets for the Royal Academy and Wigmore Hall for about $480 for two), Shopping in the West End Weekend (from about $140 for two depending on program), Antique Treasure Trove Weekend (from about $525 for two depending on program).
Additional weekend nights can be booked from about $225 for two per night.
Reservations can be made through any travel agent; or call (800) HILTONS.
The closest tube stop - Oxford Circus on the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria lines - is not really that close. But, then, one really doesn't take the tube to a place like The Langham. by CNB