Chennai: The city’s iconic old hotel, renamed in 1890 after the then Madras Governor Robert Bourke, Baron of Connemara, will be shut for guests from May 10, 2016. After a major restoration work expected to last a year at least, the city will have a brand new boutique hotel, but with a difference – the new Connemara will still preserve its old world charm and colonial legacy, according to the owners of the hotel, Taj Group.
Built in 1854 as the Imperial Hotel by Triplicane Rathinavelu Mudaliar, the caravanserai built up a tradition of genteel service in the finest British tradition of hospitality even though it kept changing hands in the 19th and 20th centuries, right up to 1984 when the Taj Group bought it. The hotel is best remembered as the place in which cricket stars stayed, including the crowd’s favourite Indian cricket team, from the late 1950s right up to the ’80s. Kapils Dev’s world Cup winning team of 1983 were also in residence there when Sunil Gavaskar went on to make the highest Indian Test score then of 235 not out in his 30th century, beating sir Donald Bradman’s record of 29 centuries. The hotel was once part of the Spencer’s Group, which too had a cricket connection with Salim Durrani its first professional player, hired by the BCCI’s Treasurer then who was a director of the group.
Hotel retains old world charm:
The iconic Spencer’s departmental store, redolent of the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture made famous in the city, faced Mount Road from the adjacent compound before it burned down in a fire, to be replaced by the city’s first extensive shopping mall. The store boasted of an escalator as far back as the 1930s, an engineering marvel then.
The hotel always boasted of “extensive premises… cool and fitted with every convenience" and celebrated wines and also fine Chettinad cuisine dining under the trees on still tropical nights. The hotel still preserves the art deco fascia, even if the tall columns have been modernised. A distinct facet of the place was its old world look and it being steeped in history with many of the city's big social events taking place there, in colonial times as well as in independent India. “The hotel might have changed names, hands and brands over the centuries, but for Chennai, it is very much a part of its glorious history,” says a press release from the GM of Vivanta by Taj - Connemara, Chennai. As the hotel has stood a silent witness to the transformation of Chennai from Madras, the city will be hoping that the old hotel will lose none of its charm with distinct south Indian artefacts and ambience.
