A new book has been released on the famous London hotel Brown’s, and there is plenty of mystery, shades of gray and intrigue within its pages.
The BBC evidently thought so, producing a short radio documentary with its author Andy Williamson.
“Brown’s Hotel: A Family Affair” essentially chronicles a rags-to-riches tale that became the most sought-after retreat for those who wanted to hide in the most salubrious grounds.
https://www.hatchards.co.uk/book/browns-hotel-a-family-affair/andy-williamson/9781399965903
Not to hide as they were wanted by Interpol — although I am not discounting the idea that someone has holed up there for that very reason — but to hide in the sense that Williamson said its guests desired to stay in a “private hotel. It is somewhere you go to tuck away, to feel you are being cosseted and cared for.”
Guests have been signing the Brown's Hotel register since 1832 — before his book, the official date was 1837. In the hotel's first decades, a guest would need to have a letter of introduction in order to be allowed to stay.
Today, Brown's Hotel is owned and managed by Rocco Forte Hotels, often thought of as the epitome of old-fashioned but eloquent hotel-keeping.
According to CoStar data, Brown's Hotel last sold in 1997 for £45 million ($57.22 million).
The hotel was opened by a domestic servant, James Brown — no, not the R&B-singing legend.
“We know very little about [Brown]. He was working class. We don’t even know what year he was born, and, bizarrely, his age seems to change depending on his death certificate, the census. He was a man of mystery,” Williamson said in an interview with the BBC's Robert Elms.
Quick aside: I remember Elms from the 1980s writing for style magazine The Face. He chronicled the early history of the New Romantic music and fashion movement across which sashayed Boy George, Steve Strange, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, The Mood and the like.
Back to the hotel story: Williamson added that Brown's was not an uncommon route to bettering oneself. Brown probably worked for what is known as a “good house,” a home of reputable, respectable folk in London, and after he secured a lease on a townhouse at 23 Dover St., London, he set about enlarging the property by securing the leases on adjacent buildings. He did this with his wife Sarah Brown, née Creswell, also in service.
The original house was called The Acorn, but just as with equally famous London hotel Claridges, hotel owners would give their hotels their names, Williamson said.
Within 10 years, the Browns expanded to four hotel properties. It was what we would call today organic growth.
Some of those Dover St. townhouses were merged with the townhouses of the street behind it, Albemarle St., with the hotel, now spanning 11 properties and 115 rooms. Today, the hotel's official address is 33 Albemarle St.
If its walls could talk.
Inventor Alexander Graham Bell did talk there. Indeed, in 1877 he made the first transatlantic call from the hotel on something he invented that he called a telephone.
During World War II, Brown's Hotel was the home of the Dutch prime minister, who was in exile.
“His government met there, and [The Netherlands] declared war on Japan from one of its rooms,” Williamson said.
Brown sold the hotel just before his death to the Ford family — existing hoteliers, not the car manufacturers. The Ford family owned Brown's Hotel for the next 70 years and made it what it is today, “into something world famous, where kings stay, where queens stay, where presidents stay,” Williamson added.
Brown faded into obscurity following his death, more famous for a name above a hotel door than being a consummate hotelier himself. He is buried in Kensal Green cemetery in North London. Williamson said during his research he found Brown's grave and spent an hour or two clearing off it brush, weeds and other detritus.
Williamson also uncovered that a daughter of the Browns died of scarlet fever. A son, also named James, took off for Australia, often a British Empire-era route for those seeking their own fortunes, and died there from dysentery.
Sarah was the last of the family to pass away, and when she did, she died a very wealthy woman, Williamson said.
“Her will was worth about £15 million in today’s money, so clearly there was money to be made in hotels,” he said.
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