Victor Hervey, the fantasist Lord Bristol

The story of the criminal activities of the Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol, whose ancestor gave Bristol hotels their name, was told on Channel 4 on March 2, 2009, as part of their Toffs and Crims series. Titled 'The Real Pink Panther', it centred on his activities as a Mayfair jewel thief, gun-runner and fantasist, and it showed how he disgraced his title and dissipated the Bristol family fortunes. Last April, Hotel Bristol News reported on the release of police papers about his suspected activities, and researchers of the programme were assisted by a copy of High Times at the Hotel Bristol. The book documented these activities in Paris Hilton and Lady Victoria Hervey, a story from the book that can now be read on line.
In the film Hervey was played by Stephen Clarke, who is pictured here outside Ickworth House, the family estate that he squandered. Our Critic, Tim Arnold, writes: "Terrible actor! Silly man!!"
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New Le Bristol for Abu Dhabi

This is big news indeed for Bristol hotels: the fabulous Le Bristol in Paris, one of the truly greats, is to open a new hotel in Abu Dhabi. Frank Marrenbanch, chief executive of Oetker Hotel Collection, which will manage the property, says the facility will bring a dash of French luxury to the capital.
Le Bristol Abu Dhabi will be built on the western side of Abu Dhabi Island and have 250 rooms and suites. Building will begin next year, and the hotel will open in 2012.
Sultan al Hameli, the managing director of the government joint-venture partner NCTH, said, "Le Bristol Abu Dhabi is definitely more than five star. It’s going to be a deluxe hotel. It’s going to be something more than what is available in the market.”

• Le Bristol will be the 4th Bristol in the Middle East, joining the eminent Le Bristol in Beirut, and the Bristols in Amman and Kuwait City.

Meanwhile Le Bristol continues to win accolades - Michelin has awarded the hotel's chef Eric Fréchon 3 stars for his creations in what is known as "Sarkozy's canteen" - the Elysée Palace is just across the Road, and it's the president's favourite restaurant. François Simon of le Figaro is not so impresssed. He has made a secret video of a meal there. His bill for a meal for two was 531 euros.
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BARGAIN BRISTOL: Hotels in Abu Dhabi, the fifth-most expensive in the world last year, have begun cutting their rates by up to 15 per cent. In Warsaw, the prestigious Le Merdien Bristol – ranked 11th among the 50 best European hotels, outstripping Ritz Hotel in Paris, according to the American monthly Travel & Leisure – prices have also dipped. Its famous Paderewski suite (pictured), containing the pianist/prime minister's bureau and armchair usually costs around 600 euros a night, but, says a report on Polish radio, you could now probably get it for more like 100 euros.
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Stairways to Bristol heaven

.Two Bristol hotels are famous for their magnificent staircases. The picture on the left is of the 4–star Bristol in Geneva. It was taken by TimDD and has just been posted on Flickr. “This is the beautiful hotel stairway, from the fourth floor,” he says. “I think it looks like a chambered nautilus.”

The 4-Star Bristol Palace in Genoa (right) also has a fabulous stairway. Built in 1905 in ‘style Liberty’, as the Italians call Art Nouveau, the hotel's white marble stairs with wrought iron balustrades soar up to a stained glass ceiling. Alfred Hitchcock is among the hotel’s many famous guests, and the stairs are said to have inspired him to make Vertigo.
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2008 Bristol Hotel round-up

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• A new Hotel Bristol has emerged in Bristol, England, as the Jurys Hotel Bristol drops its “Jury’s” after an £8 million refurbishment. The Jurys hotel group, which has 11 hotels in the UK, Ireland and the US, is now to be called The Doyle Collection. Mark Roche-Garland is General Manager of the 187-room 60s dockside hotel.

• The Bristol Hotel in Campbell/San Jose California is up for sale for $6 million. Built in 2000, this 5-star boutique hotel with marble bathrooms and classic cherry furniture has 47 rooms.

• The Kempinski Hotel Bristol in Berlin is spending 5.5 million euros on restoration of the landmark hotel’s Tower. Two Deluxe Suites are also being designed in Art Deco style on the 10th and 11th floors, to add to the 514 sq m Presidential Suite that occupies two floors. It should be completed by February.

• Actor Simon Callow told the Daily Telegraph in an interview that the Hotel Bristol in Vienna is his favourite hotel – he has stayed five times. He said: “Last time I was there I stayed in a suite that puts one in mind of Mayerling – the hunting lodge where the Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, killed his mistress before committing suicide.”

• BBC Radio 4 had a play just before Christmas about PG Wodehouse’s incarceration in Le Bristol in Paris during World War II, an event touched on in Suha Arafat and the Hope Diamond, a story set in the hotel in High Times at the Hotel Bristol, which can be read online.

• Le Bristol in continues to win accolades: four important ones this year: ‘World’s Best Hotel’, ‘Europe’s Best Hotel’, ‘World’s Best Luxury Romantic Hotel’ and ‘Europe’s Best Hotel Restaurant’. Innovations have included its own fragrance, for scents and candles, concocted by Jean Michel Duriez, head perfumer at La Maison Jean Patou, and the provision of a complimentary Smart Car for guests who want to go shopping.
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Hotel Bristol, Merano, by Elisabeth Hölzl

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Hotel Bristol, published by Folio Verlagsges, documents the death throes of the hotel in the mountain spa town of Merano, near the German border in Trentino Alto-Adige. Photographer Elisabeth Hölzl, who was born in the town in 1962, spent two years taking pictures of the abandoned Hotel Bristol and its gradual demolition. The hotel was famous before the war, and re-opened in 1954 as one of the most modern and elegant in Europe. It was refurbished by its owner, the Genoan shipbuilder Arnaldo Bennati, who wanted to turn Merano into a second St. Moritz. According to a catalogue for an exhibition of the photographs published online by Berlin's Galerie artMbassy, "The Bristol reflects the decline of a decadent Habsburg Monarchy, the megalomania of of Mussolini’s fascism, the infamous treaty of 1939 between Hitler and Mussolini, the brief sparks of Italian national pride in South Tyrol after World War II, and mass tourist invasion that radically changed the face of the Alps. Stars and starlets, gamblers and speculators, Europe’s moneyed aristocracy, and a future pope – they all appeared at the Bristol."
. For 15 years, the Bristol, in the middle of the town, stood empty – "Its white marble was filthy, its shutters hung crooked, its windows were as blunt as blind eyes. In 2006, the excavators and pneumatic hammers shattered the last residues of a dream. Buildings are designed as strong images that must be replaced by others as soon as they have lost their signal character... They are like old ocean liners – no one would bother restoring or converting them. After they have been used, ships become scrap metal, and hotels are gutted and torn down."

(Arnaldo Bennati was not entirely unsuccessful as a hotel owner. In the 1930s he bought the Bauer Hotel in Venice, which today is run by his granddaughter)
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The Bristol Story

Any Hotel Bristol proprietor looking for ideas to theme his or her establishment may look no further than The Bristol Story, an excellently produced 200-page history of the famous city in comic-book form. Written by Eugene Byrne and illustrated by Simon Gurr for the Bristol Great Reading Adventure 2008, it is rammed with facts. It includes a gallery of the city's best-known sons, daughters and dogs, including:
• Britain's most famous cricketer, WG Grace
• actor Cary Grant
• Samuel Plimsoll, inventor of the maritime Plimsoll Line
• 'Nipper' the canine model for HMV gramophone records
• Louise Brown, the world's first 'test tube baby'.
And did you know that this inventive city of vehicle and aircraft manufacturing made the first holiday caravan?
Thousands of copies of Bristol Story have been distributed free to schools and colleges, libraries, reading groups, the business community and members of the public.
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The new Bristol Hotel in Istanbul

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Hippolyte Jammet's battle for the name of Bristol in Paris in the 1920s was not the only time that the name was sought after and won. After the closure in Istanbul of the 19th-century Bristol – one of the original great hotels in the Beyoglu district (see October 2007 post) – hotelier Ali Ihsan Huzmeli (left) sought the name for his hotel in nearby Meşrutiyet Caddesi. This is where Tim Arnold, intrepid hunter of all hotels called Bristol, met him last week. Mr Huzmeli showed him the government certificate he had received after a long process to possess the right to use the name of the former hotel. Mr Huzmeli's Hotel Bristol is a modern hotel with 70 rooms and seven suites, and its sister hotels, all in Beyoglu, are the Grand Hotel de Londres, the Yali Hotel and the Hotel Monopol. Hearing that the Bristol is shortly to undergo renovation, Tim Arnold, a Bristolian, wondered about a Bristol theme – a Clifton Room, Avon Restaurant, Brunel Bar...
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