On Brighton’s sea front stands one of the city’s finest hotels, the Grand Hotel, and it’s just changed hands again! Formerly owned by De Vere Hotels, who we might add have spent a fortune on refurbishing 201 bedrooms and 11 conference rooms, the hotel has been bought by a private investor for an undisclosed sum.
For a Victorian hotel designed by John Whichcord Jr. and built in 1864, it has quite a past! Apart from being ahead of its time when built with the inclusion of the first lift to be built in the UK, outside of London, and a great example of Italian influence, the hotel also owns a 43ft yacht called the AnnabelOlivia!
The Grand Hotel is an icon of luxury living in Brighton; it’s opulent style and 5 star service was targeted at the upper classes when Brighton became a fashionable resort and with its grand ballroom, billiards room, smoking room and library, together with its lavish dining facilities, many a person has graced its corridors! Notable guests have included Napoleon III, the Duke of Windsor, John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan; and it has also been a TV and film location – who can forget the Delboy and Rodney at the hotel in Only Fools and Horses episode entitled “Mother Nature’s Son”! However it is another, somewhat tragic, incident that propelled the hotel into our modern-day limelight…
In 1984, the centre of the hotel was torn apart by an IRA bomb which was planted in an attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, during the Conservative Party’s conference taking place at the hotel. Whilst the attempt itself failed, although close, five people lost their lives – two were high-profile members of the Conservative Party – and thirty-one people were injured and it threw a dark cloud over the hotel.
But the Grand Hotel was not to be beaten; two years later it re-opened and its special guest was none other than Margaret Thatcher, still Prime Minister at that time, and Concorde graced the skies above. Since the restoration work in 1984-86 to restore the hotel to its former glory, and De Vere Hotels’ report £10 million spend on refurbishments to take it to even greater heights of splendour, the south coast landmark changes hands once again, ready to open its grand doors to the next guest to walk its corridors and wonder in breathless silence at its beauty.