Category: The Making of

Munich: The Charles, Rocco Forte's third German Hotel to open October 4, 2007

The Charles Hotel

From the Press Release:

The Rocco Forte Collection is delighted to announce that its Munich property will open on 4 October 2007. It will be called The Charles Hotel, in honor of Sir Rocco Forte’s father, renowned hotelier Lord Charles Forte.

The Charles Hotel is The Rocco Forte Collection’s third German property, joining Hotel de Rome in Berlin (which opened in October 2006) and Villa Kennedy in Frankfurt (which opened in March 2006), and confirms The Rocco Forte Collection as the key player in the luxury hotel market in Germany.

Located in the heart of the Bavarian city of Munich, guests of The Charles Hotel will be guaranteed a peaceful stay with great views over the area known as Lenbach Gärten (which lies on the edge of the Botanical Gardens). Ideal for business and leisure travelers, the hotel is within walking distance of the commercial district, popular shopping areas and entertainment facilities. It is also well located for transport links, being close to the city’s main train station, The Hauptbahnhof, with the Franz Josef Strauss airport lying just 28 km northeast of Munich.

A stylish new-build, The Charles Hotel is set to significantly raise the standard of visitor accommodation in Munich. The design has been overseen by The Rocco Forte Collection’s Director of Design, Olga Polizzi, and – as with all the other properties in the Collection – will have its own personality that reflects its location.

For example, there will be Bavarian limestone on the floors, ceramic artwork from Nymphenburg porcelain in the bathrooms and original paintings by Munich’s celebrated 19th century portrait artist Franz von Lenbach in the bedrooms, alongside works by contemporary artists living and working in and around Munich.

The eight-story, Euros 71.5 million hotel will have 132 40-square-meters rooms, nine Junior Suites (measuring 48 square meters each), 18 Master Suites (70 square meters) and a Presidential Suite (100 square meters). Located on the eighth floor, the stunning Presidential Suite boasts a large terrace with breathtaking views over the city and can be combined with a further three suites, creating an entire private floor of 455 square meters. Virtually all the rooms have views over the Botanical Gardens.

The hotel also comprises an Italian restaurant with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Botanical Gardens, a terrace for outdoors dining in the summer months and a private dining room; a bar; seven conference rooms equipped with state-of-the-art technology and all benefiting from natural light; a ballroom accommodating up to 400 guests for a drinks reception; and a large spa with sauna, 15-meter swimming pool, five treatment rooms offering a range of wellness and beauty treatments and a gym with all the latest cardiovascular machinery.

Once in operation, The Charles Hotel will provide the same attention to detail, exceptional levels of comfort and personal service for which The Rocco Forte Collection has become so well known.

Boston: Historic Ames Building becomes Ames Hotel

Boston Ames Building
Image of the Boston Globe article
Ames Building Boston Mass
Picture found in Wiki

In a recent article the Boston Globe reports about the plans to give the Ames Building in Boston, once (from 1893 – 1915) Boston’s tallest building except for The Church of the Covenant, a new life as a hotel.
Ehotelier.com also reports about this development from the same source. As the Boston Globe it suggests that the Ames Building will become a boutique hotel. I fear this is over stretching the term boutique hotel a bit with 125 rooms planned.
For the time being the project is christened The Ames Hotel .
The present developer Normandy partners who teamed up with Brit Richard Kilstock and Eamon O’Marah, acquired the property in April 2007 for US $17,7 mio and anticipates a US $ 40 mio redevelopment.
Prior plans to convert this property into a hotel were from former owners Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation and from O’Callaghan Hotels, a Dublin based hotel chain.
Boston based Cambridge Seven Associated, Inc were architects involved in the O’Callaghan plans.
The building itself looks promising as a hotel from the above pictures. I would suggest the developers to have a look at the Vienna Radisson SAS Style hotel which is similar in structure albeit with only 74 rooms a bit smaller and probably more personal.

Zwolle: First Sandton Pillows 5* Hotel to open 1st August 2007

Pillows Front
Hotel Pillows Front (artist impression)
Pillows Suite
Hotel Pillows Suite

Thanks to Tourpress I know that small independent Dutch hotel group Sandton will open its first Pillows 5* Hotel with 44 rooms in Zwolle, The Netherlands, on August 1, 2007.

A first, because Sandton has announced a second Pillows hotel for 2008 in Amsterdam and considers more hotels with the Pillows concept.

I announced this hotel in June last year.

Rotterdam: A Small Hotel…in a big city

Today someone told me that yesterday, June 20, 2007, A Small Hotel, 6 rooms only, opened its doors.

More to follow.

Austria: Schloss Velden, a Most Famous Hotel of the world reopened by a former associate of Bill Marriott on the move…

Could one have a better opening press release than one by Andreas Augustin himself? I don’t believe so.

Andreas is the man behind

Schloss Velden was officially opened on Sunday May 27 2007 with 7000 guests for the opening ceremony. On Monday May 28, 2007 it was opened for 300 guests who could have their first nap in this Castle originally dating back to 1590.

At the moment I write this I find it a bit strange there is no other form of communication about this opening on the sites:

  • of the hotel Cappella, Schloss Velden. Note the way the name is presented….and note its press page simply states:

    “Press Room…..We need information for this page. (sic!),

  • of the Management company Capella Hotels,

than a press release dated March 3, 2007…..

A Royally missed opportunity I would say in this Internet Millennium….

Rather than reiterating Andreas words, I will remain silent, until I have visited the place somewhere in the first half of 2008 and been able to look around and ride the Woerther Lake, preferably with this Boesch below….

Velden Boesch
Velden Boesch

BTW, I have asked former ultimate boss of Mr Horst Schulze who currently operates Capella and is a former COO of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company LLC, a Marriot subsidiary, i.e. Mr Bill Marriott, whether he would like to comment on this new venture of his former associate Mr Horst Schulze in his Blog Marriot on the move. Why? Because there is some scepsis in the world of travel Bloggers whether the Blog of Mr Marriott is a pure unbiased blog or a simple means of self promotion (proclamation?) of the Marriott on the move community.

Mr Marriott’s Blog’s “terms of use” state inter alia:

We will only post comments that are relevant and appropriate to the Marriott on the Move community. It may take a couple of days for your posting to appear, especially on weekends, or it may not be published at all. We may react to some comments either individually or as a cluster of comments on the same topic. While there is a possibility your comment may not be published at all, we truly hope by laying out the “rules of the road” we will avoid that from happening as much as possible. For example, a posting about a particular element of our service at many our hotels would be addressed on this blog. On the other hand, a posting that raises a specific issue or billing dispute may instead be referred to our Customer Care or another department, so we can work directly with you to resolve the issue. If you a have specific issue or billing dispute, please contact our Customer Care group at https://www.marriott.com/marriott/contact.mi. You should not assume that a posting on this blog constitutes notice to Marriott of any such matters or for any legal purposes.

and:

The bottom line is that we want to hear from you – both the positive and negative!

Recently however they allowed a negative comment:

Posted By: matz (27/05/2007 10:16:28 PM)
Comment: Quite a blog you run. Everyone seems to love uncle Bill and the Marriott hotels. Why not, for the sake of honesty, publish less complimentary comments (my comments were ignored. I will find other venues outside the “family” As a lifetime platinum guest ,more recently a former guest who prefers to boycott your operation, I am highly insulted Your community service is admirable. Pay attention to your non-existing customer service

Let’s see what happens.

Update 1

My questiond disappeared unanswered from Mr Marriot’s blog.

Update 2

I was trying to weed out dead links in various posts and found out this:

We are sorry to inform you that Schloss Velden is no longer managed by Capella Hotels and Resorts. We hope, however, that you will choose to visit one of our other Capella Hotels.

Last edited by GJE on December 5, 2011 at 4:56 pm