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Hotel Majapahit

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Hotel Majapahit

The Hotel Majapahit is a historic luxury hotel in Surabaya, Indonesia. Located at 65 Jalan Tunjungan, Surabaya. The hotel was founded in 1910 as Hotel Oranje by Lucas Martin Sarkies who commissioned Regent Alfred John Bidwell to design the hotel. The hotel opened on 1 July 1911.

A new art deco style lobby extension was opened in 1936. The opening was celebrated with a royal party attended by Crown Prince Leopold III from Belgium, Princess Astrid from Sweden and Charlie Chaplin.

During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia from 1942 to 1945 during WWII, the hotel's name was changed to Yamato Hotel and was initially operated as a temporary prison-camp for Japanese-interned Dutch women and children. The hotel was the site of the famous "Insiden Hotel Yamato" (in English, known as the "Hotel Yamato Incident") on the 19th of September in 1945 when pro-nationalist Indonesian youth revolutionaries tore away the blue portion of the Dutch flag flown above the hotel to change it to the red-and-white Indonesian flag in the lead-up to the Battle of Surabaya. Following this incident, the hotel was once again renamed and became known as the Hotel Merdeka (Independence Hotel).

In 1946 the Sarkies brothers returned to manage the hotel and changed the name to the Lucas Martin Sarkies Hotel. Then, in 1969 Mantrust Holdings Co. became the new owner and named the hotel after the historic kingdom of Majapahit. It was once operated by the Mandarin Oriental hotel group. Today it is called Hotel Majapahit and still operates as a hotel, although most of the interior of the building has been renovated.

In 2014, Hotel Majapahit was officially recognized as a cultural heritage by the Ministry of Education and Culture.

References

Hotel Majapahit Wikipedia