Carlton Hotel, London

The site, on the corner of the Haymarket and Pall Mall, part of the Crown Estate, was leased by the Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues to the Earl of Dudley.

The actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree agreed to take a lease of the theatre, the Office of Woods approved the plans, and building started in July 1896.

[1] When building work began, César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier were employed by Richard D'Oyly Carte as manager and chef de cuisine respectively at the Savoy Hotel.

The company's prospectus stated: The Hotel has been erected from plans approved by the Crown, and decorated and equipped by Messrs. Waring and Gillow, Limited.

It contains upwards of 250 bed and sitting rooms, which are arranged both en suite and separately, and decorated and furnished in 18th century English and French styles.

[1] The Survey of London quoted a contemporary critic, Edwin Sachs, who commented on the hotel and theatre: "The treatment is considered to be in the French Renaissance style and stone has been used throughout.

The Survey adds, however: "Present-day connoisseurs of late-Victorian architecture are less censorious, and many will regret the partial demolition of a building which, though overspiced with eclectic details, had considerable panache.

F. Ashburner, a biographer of Escoffier, has written, "From its opening [the Carlton] attracted much of the Savoy's clientele, including the Prince of Wales and the Marlborough House set.

[6] The Manchester Guardian commented that the hotel's "grill room looked very old fashioned and glum in latter years, but still Mr. Andrew Mellon and other major millionaires thought it the only satisfactory place in London.

"[7] The future Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh allegedly worked at the Carlton Hotel during 1913, training as a pastry chef under Escoffier, but the claim lacks documentary evidence.