
The Strand Palace Hotel is a large
hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...
on the north side of the
Strand, London
Strand (or the Strand) is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster, Central London. It runs just over from Trafalgar Square eastwards to Temple Bar, where the road becomes Fleet Street in the City of London, and is part of the A4, ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, positioned close to
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...
,
Aldwych
Aldwych (pronounced ) is a street and the name of the area immediately surrounding it in central London, England, within the City of Westminster. The street starts east-northeast of Charing Cross, the conventional map centre-point of the ci ...
,
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commem ...
and the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...
.
History
The hotel was built after
Exeter Hall
Exeter Hall was a large public meeting place on the north side of the Strand in central London, opposite where the Savoy Hotel now stands. From 1831 until 1907 Exeter Hall was the venue for many great gatherings by promoters of human betterme ...
was demolished in 1907. It opened in 1909
and was refurbished in the
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...
style during the 1930s, but has now been modernised.
Strand Hotel Limited was incorporated on 31 October 1907, with some 4,000 shareholders. Created by the Salmon and Gluckstein families, it was established to fund the building of the Strand Palace Hotel.
J. Lyons & Co. acquired shares in this enterprise in 1922, and also bought the adjoining Haxells family hotel in order to expand and improve the Strand Hotel.
After extensive redevelopment, the hotel became an
art deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...
showcase, and re-opened in 1928, with 980 bedrooms. The rear of the property was occupied by the Winter Garden Restaurant, which had a large domed ceiling and could seat over 500 guests, who were served by over one hundred staff.
In February 1946,
Neville Heath
Neville George Clevely Heath (6 June 1917 – 16 October 1946) was an English murderer who killed two young women in the summer of 1946. He was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, in October 1946.
Early life and career
Neville Heath was born ...
was found by staff members in a room standing over the body of Pauline Rees, an incident occurring during Heath's murder career.
After the war, the hotel made several improvements. Private bathrooms were installed in all guest rooms in 1958; this reduced the overall number of rooms at the hotel to 786. The new bathroom facilities meant that oil-fired boilers had to be installed.
In 1968, the front hall and ground floor restaurants, including the Winter Garden, were redesigned, and the first computerised billing system in London was installed. The revolving doors and other parts of the foyer designed by
Oliver Bernard
Oliver Bernard (6 December 1925 – 1 June 2013) was an English poet and translation, translator. He is perhaps best known for translating Arthur Rimbaud into English as part of the Penguin Classics collection.
Bernard was born in London, to t ...
were removed in this redesign, but were of such fine quality and historic interest that the curators at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...
requested them for their collection in 1969. The pieces were dismantled and stored in the museum's Battersea depot. The doors were exhibited in 2003 in the museum's major exhibition 'Art Deco: 1910–1939', following reconstruction.

In 1976,
Forte
Forte or Forté may refer to:
Music
*Forte (music), a musical dynamic meaning "loudly" or "strong"
* Forte number, an ordering given to every pitch class set
* Forte (notation program), a suite of musical score notation programs
* Forte (vocal ...
bought the lease of the Strand Palace Hotel from the Lyons Hotel Group. Over the next ten years, there was minor refurbishment throughout the hotel. In 1985, a more in-depth refurbishment was undertaken on all floors of the new hotel; this included new furniture, new bathrooms and a redecoration of the bedrooms.
London and Regional Properties took over the hotel in 2006. They contracted Michael Gallie to deliver an updated floor plan and area referencing, and outline the external elevations.
References
External links
Hotel website
{{coord, 51.511, -0.121, type:landmark_region:GB-WSM, display=title
Hotels established in 1909
Hotel buildings completed in 1909
Hotels in London
Buildings and structures in the City of Westminster
Art Deco hotels
Art Deco architecture in London
1909 establishments in England
Strand, London