On May 24, 1976, Hyatt International signed a contract to manage a new hotel to be built by the Royal Estates Administration in Tehran.

[1] The Hyatt Crown Tehran was completed two years later, but only partially opened on September 1, 1978,[1] due to the then-ongoing Iranian Revolution.

It was extensively damaged and occupied by the Guards, but remained in operation, run by Hyatt-trained Iranian staff.

The Azadi Grand Hotel closed in 2007 for a $50 million renovation overseen by Franco-Italian,[3] Swiss-German and British interior designers and a number of Western/European construction firms.

[5] The mission was dramatized in Ken Follett's 1983 international bestseller On Wings of Eagles, which was filmed as a 1986 TV miniseries.