Dorchester Hotel

General information
Type	Luxury hotel
Town or city	Mayfair, London
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°30′26″N 0°09′09″W / 51.50722°N 0.15250°W / 51.50722; -0.15250
Opened	18 April 1931
Design and construction
Architect	Owen Williams & William Curtis Green
Main contractor	Sir Robert McAlpine & Sir Frances Towle
Other information
Number of rooms	250
Number of suites	49
Website
Official site

The Dorchester is a five-star luxury hotel on Park Lane and Deanery Street, London, to the east of Hyde Park. It is one of the world's most prestigious and expensive hotels. The Dorchester opened on 18 April 1931, and still retains its 1930s furnishings and ambiance despite being modernised.

Throughout its history the hotel has been closely associated with the rich and famous. During the 1930s it became known as a haunt of numerous writers and artists such as poet Cecil Day-Lewis, novelist Somerset Maugham, and the painter Sir Alfred Munnings. It held prestigious literary gatherings, notably the "Foyles Literary Luncheons", an event the hotel still hosts today. During the Second World War, the strength of its construction gave the hotel the reputation of being one of London's safest buildings, and a host of political and military luminaries chose it as their London residence. Queen Elizabeth II attended the Dorchester when she was a princess on the day prior to the announcement of her engagement to the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on 10 July 1947. The hotel has since become particularly popular with film actors, models and rock stars, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton frequently stayed at the hotel throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The hotel became a Grade II Listed Building in January 1981, and was subsequently purchased by the Sultan of Brunei in 1985. It belongs to the Dorchester Collection, which in turn is owned by the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA), an arm of the Ministry of Finance of Brunei.

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