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The Langham, London is one of the largest and best known traditional style grand hotels in London. It is in the district of Marylebone on Langham Place and faces up Portland Place towards Regent's Park. It is a member of the ''Leading Hotels of the World'' marketing consortium. == History == The Langham was designed by John Giles and built between 1863 and 1865 at a cost of £300,000.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=1863 – The Langham Hotel, Portland Place, London )〕 It was then the largest and most modern hotel in the city, featuring a hundred water closets, thirty-six bathrooms and the first hydraulic lifts in England. The opening ceremony on 16 June was performed by the Prince of Wales. After the original company was liquidated during an economic slump, new management acquired the hotel for little more than half of its construction cost, and it soon became a commercial success. In 1867, a former Union officer named James Sanderson was appointed general manager and the hotel developed an extensive American clientele, which included Mark Twain and the miserly multi-millionairess, Hetty Green. It was also patronised by the likes of Napoleon III, Oscar Wilde, Antonín Dvořák, and Arturo Toscanini. Electric light was installed in the entrance and courtyard at the exceptionally early date of 1879, and Arthur Conan Doyle set Sherlock Holmes stories such as ''A Scandal in Bohemia'' and ''The Sign of Four'' partly at the Langham. The Langham continued throughout the 20th century to be a favoured spot with members of the royal family, such as Diana, Princess of Wales, and many high profile politicians including Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url=http://www.langhamhotels.com/pdf/lhi_history_lhi_en.pdf )〕 Other guests included Noël Coward, Wallis Simpson, Don Bradman, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and Ayumi Hamasaki. The Langham was hard hit by the Great Depression and the owners attempted to sell the site to the BBC, but Broadcasting House was built across Portland Place instead. During World War II, the hotel was used in part by the Army until it was damaged by bombs and forced to close. After the war, it was occupied by the BBC as ancillary accommodation to Broadcasting House, and the corporation purchased it outright in 1965. One BBC employee who stayed at the Langham was Guy Burgess, one of the 'Cambridge Five', a spying ring who fed official secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War. A BBC internal memo reveals that upon being unable to access his room in the hotel late one night, Burgess attempted to break down the door with a fire extinguisher. The handsome pillared Palm Court became the reference library, and the restaurant a staff bar and refreshment room.〔'Radio: the great years, Derek Parker (David & Charles, 1977) p.83〕 In 1980, the BBC unsuccessfully applied for planning permission to demolish the building and replace it with an office development designed by Norman Foster. In 1986, the BBC sold the property to the Ladbroke Group, who later purchased the non-US Hilton Hotels, for £26 million and eventually reopened the hotel as the Langham Hilton in 1991 after a £100 million refurbishment. New owners extended the hotel and carried out other refurbishments between 1998 and 2000. Further renovation took place between 2004 and 2009, at an estimated cost of £80 million, bringing the hotel back to the status of its grand past and maintaining the quintessential English feel and level of sophistication of its early days. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Langham Hotel, London」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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