Langham Hotel, London
| Langham Hotel | |
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 Location within Central London
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| General information | |
| Location | 1c Portland Place, Regent Street, Marylebone, London, England |
| Coordinates | 51°31′4″N 0°8′38.39″W / 51.51778°N 0.1439972°W |
| Opening | 10 June 1865 |
| Owner | Langham Hotels International |
| Technical details | |
| Floor area | 8 |
| Designations |  |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 380 |
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.
The Langham was designed by John Giles and built between 1863 and 1865 at a cost of £300,000. 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. Other guests included Noël Coward, Wallis Simpson, Don Bradman, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and Ayumi Hamasaki.
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