Hotels for book lovers
THE BLOOMSBURY HOTEL, LONDON
16-22 Great Russell Street, doylecollection.com/bloomsbury, tel: 0044-207347-1000.
The Bloomsbury Hotel is both in the city’s centre and at the heart of literary London. The area was the stamping ground of the Bloomsbury Set, whose members included EM Forster and Virginia Woolf. Many publishing companies were based around here and some still are, or in nearby Farringdon and Covent Garden. The hotel is in a neo-Georgian listed building that was designed as the headquarters for the YWCA by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who also lived in the area, at 29 Bloomsbury Square. The hotel’s library has remained largely unchanged since that day but last year it was renamed the Séamus Heaney Library, and was opened by the poet who has stayed at the hotel over 10 years.
It contains hundreds of books, many from the 1930s onwards, and more are being added all the time. Heaney is donating some of his translations and books, including Death of a Naturalist and Open Ground. The hotel, which also sponsors the Royal Society of Literature, is close to the British Museum, Covent Garden and Oxford Street.
Rooms There are 153 bedrooms on eight floors, ranging from standard to studio suites. The interiors include pieces by designers such as PTT, BB Italia and Osborne Little: the furniture combines a heritage feel with shots of vibrant colours in cushions, lamps and armchairs.
Doubles from £145 (€177).
HOTEL ELYSÉE, NEW YORK
60 East 54th Street, NY 10022, elyseehotel.com, tel: 001-212-753-1066
Tennessee Williams made this Midtown Manhattan hotel his home for 15 years and the story goes that when another guest complained about his typewriter clacking away at all hours, it was he who was moved, not Williams. The playwright died in the hotel in 1983, in the Sunset Suite. Other authors who regularly stayed included Leon Uris, Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins. The hotel, located between Madison and Park avenues, was created by Swiss architect Max Haering, who kitted it out in a classical European style that lasts to this day (although it has been refurbished since). Its style and location attracted all sorts of stars, many of whom, like Williams, lived here. They include Margot Fonteyn, Maria Callas, Ava Gardner, Tallulah Bankhead, Sidney Poitier, James Caan and Joe DiMaggio. The Elysée is close to Central Park, museums, the Rockefeller Center and Fifth Avenue. Its Monkey Bar has featured in Sex and the City and Mad Men, among others.
Rooms: there are 100 rooms (87 standard, three junior suites and 10 suites). Some have terraces, solariums or kitchenettes (should you too want to live here). Rooms sizes range from 300sq ft to 950sq ft and they have opening windows (along with air-con), a rarity in this day of sealed, air-conditioned city hotels. The presidential suite comes with a baby grand piano.
Doubles from $240 (€181.50).
L’HOTEL, PARIS
13 Rue des Beaux-Arts, l-hotel.com, tel: 0033-14441-9900
Shunned by London society, Oscar Wilde met his tragic end here, dying of meningitis, and in poverty, in 1900, when it was known as Hotel d’Alsace. He stayed in room 16 claiming he was “dying beyond my means” and famously blaming the hotel’s outlandish decor for his demise. “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has to go.”
At least one writer since has sought out the hotel for its Wildean history: Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, who translated The Happy Prince when he was just nine.
L’Hotel became the in-place for celebrities including Salavdor Dali, Princess Grace, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton – Marlon Brando again crops up: he also stayed in Hotel Elysée in New York (above).
L’Hotel was recently given an overhaul by designer Jacques Garcia and is on the Hip Hotel list. There is a pool and steam room in the vaulted brick cellar.
Rooms There are 20 rooms, from a standard double to an apartment, all reached via a spiral stair rising up through six floors. Each is individually designed in an opulent, over the top style that is also evident in the bar and restaurant. Bathrooms are lush.
Doubles start at €255.