Opened 1837 Management Rocco Forte Hotels Number of rooms 117 | Owner Rocco Forte Hotels Floor count 5 | |
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Location 33 Albemarle Street, Mayfair, London | ||
Brown's Hotel is a hotel in London, established in 1837 and owned by Rocco Forte Hotels since 3 July 2003.
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History
Brown's Hotel was founded in 1837, by James and Sarah Brown.
Historian John Lothrop Motley stayed at the hotel in 1874, as shown in a letter he wrote on the 17th of June of that year, to Dutch historian Groen van Prinsterer. Celebrated Victorian writers Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, JM Barrie and Bram Stoker were also all regular visitors. The hotel has also hosted Alexander Graham Bell (who made the first phone call in Europe from the hotel), Theodore Roosevelt, Napoleon III, Empress Eugenie, Elizabeth, Queen of the Belgians, Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, George II, King of the Hellenes, Cecil Rhodes, Rudyard Kipling and Agatha Christie. While Brown's has been described as the inspiration hotel for Christie's At Bertram's Hotel, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says Christie's model was a different Mayfair hotel, Fleming's.
The hotel came under the management of Rocco Forte on 3 July 2003, having once been managed by Raffles International Hotels. During 2004–2005 the hotel underwent a £24 million refurbishment and re-opened in December 2005.
Interior
The Brown's Hotel is noted for its traditional English Victorian sophistication fused with a contemporary feel. The bedrooms are designed by Olga Polizzi and combine modern features with traditional furnishing and are all individually decorated. The standard rooms are 32 to 40 square metres in size with the suites being 50 to 95 square metres.
The hotel has several restaurants and bars including The Albemarle (formerly the Grill), an informal A La Carte restaurant which serves both English and continental cuisine, the Brown’s English Tea Room which has served afternoon tea and light snacks since the mid nineteenth century and The Donovan Bar, pays homage to the celebrated British photographer Terence Donovan and is lined with over 50 of his iconic black and white prints. The bar is furnished with wooden floors, black leather seating and dark country check banquettes. In one corner are "naughty" adult-oriented photographs and a table for 12. The bar serves over sixty cocktails and thirty wines and champagnes. The hotel has six conference rooms, serving up to 120 people.