Shepheard's Hotel was the leading hotel in Cairo and one of the most celebrated hotels in the world from the middle of the 19th century until its destruction in 1952 during the Cairo Fire. Five years after the original hotel was destroyed, a new one was built nearby and was named the Shepheard Hotel.
The hotel was originally established in 1841 by Samuel Shepheard under the name "Hotel des Anglais" (English Hotel), [1] [2] and was later renamed "Shepheard's Hotel". [3] Shepheard, an Englishman who was once described as "an undistinguished apprentice pastry chef", [4] came from Preston Capes, Northamptonshire. He co-owned the hotel with Mr. Hill, Mohammed Ali Pasha's head coachman, and proved to be a successful entrepreneur and businessman. On one occasion, when soldiers staying at the hotel were suddenly moved to Crimea, leaving unpaid bills, Shepheard travelled personally to Sevastopol in order to collect payment. [1]
In 1845, Hill relinquished his interest in the hotel, and Shepheard became the sole owner. Shepheard sold the hotel in 1861 for £10,000 [5] to the Bavarian hotelier Philip Zech (or Zeck) [6] and retired to Eathorpe Hall, Eathorpe, Warwickshire, England. Richard Burton, a close friend of Shepheard, left a detailed description of his generous character and successful career, describing him as "a remarkable man in many points, and in all things the model John Bull". [5] [7]
The hotel was renovated in 1869 after a fire destroyed the south wing of the building. By the last decade of the 19th century, it was apparent that the original building was dated; for it to remain competitive, a new structure would have to be constructed ex novo. Zech employed the services of a young Nuremberg-born German architect, Johann Adam Rennebaum, to design a hotel on the same plot that would far exceed its predecessors in size and luxury. [6] The construction of this final building, completed in 1891, is the most famous and well-documented incarnation of the hotel. In 1898, the Arab Hall (also designed by Rennebaum) was added in the central courtyard of the building, and further expansions occurred in 1904, 1909 and 1927. [6] The near-total omission of Rennebaum's name in the documentation of the hotel has likely to do with a concerted attempt by the British colonial authorities after the First World War to eradicate any trace of German influence in Egypt . [6] Ownership of the hotel passed into the hands of Zech's daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Kemmerich. In 1896, the Kemmerichs sold the hotel to Egyptian Hotels Ltd., a British company that subsequently leased it to the Compagnie Internationaldes Grands Hôtels. This company in turn was purchased by the Swiss hotel magnate Karl (Charles) Baehler. [6] Shepheard's Hotel was famed for its grandeur, for its guests, and as a base for the military. It was renowned for its opulence, with stained glass, Persian carpets, gardens, terraces, and great granite pillars resembling those of the Ancient Egyptian temples. Its American Bar was frequented not only by Americans but also by French and British officers. There were nightly dances at which men appeared in military uniform and women in evening gowns.
The bar was also known as the "long bar" because it was always so crowded that it required considerable waiting to get a drink. [8] In 1941–42, when there were very real fears that the Wehrmacht's Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel might take Cairo, a popular joke amongst the British and Australian soldiers waiting for service at the "long bar" was: "Wait until he [Rommel] gets to Shepheard's; that'll hold him up". [8] The Suffering bastard cocktail was created at the bar. [9] Bartender Joe Scialom was looking to make a hangover drink for allied troops and according to story made one as a "cure" for the suffering soldiers who complained about the poor quality of liquor in the area. [10] During the fighting, Nazi General Rommel allegedly said "I'll be drinking champagne in the master suite at Shepheard's soon". [11]
The "long bar" was popular with the cabinet of the Greek government-in-exile, and Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary on 21 August 1944 that the Greek government-in-exile should move to Italy to escape the "poisonous atmosphere of intrigue which reigns in Cairo. All previous Greek governments-in-exile have been broken in the bar of Shepheard's". [12]
Tourist shops faced the hotel from across the street, and there was a storeroom where officers could leave their excess luggage. Reviews of the hotel's cuisine varied over time. At an early stage, its food was said to leave "much to be desired" [4] [13] but, by the middle of the 20th century, others were describing the food as "as good as anything at Paris' Ritz, or Berlin's Adlon, or Rome's Grand". [14]
By the late 1940s the quality of the long established hotel appeared to have declined. The writer Philip Toynbee described it in his diary as an "ancient hell" [15]
Among its famous guests were Aga Khan, the Maharajah of Jodhpur, Richard Markgraf and Winston Churchill. [16]
On 26 January 1952 the hotel was destroyed during the Cairo Fire, a period of anti-British riots and dramatic civil unrest that led to the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. [17] [18]
The hotel has had many notable fictional guests. It was portrayed in the 1934 British film The Camels are Coming . [19] The hotel is the setting for a number of scenes in the 1996 film The English Patient but actual filming of the scenes happened at The Grand Hotel des Bains in Venice Lido, Italy. [20] The hotel is used as a base of operations in The Race Colonization series by Harry Turtledove, [21] as a location in Agatha Christie's Crooked House, [22] and is mentioned in Death on the Nile and Anthony Trollope's short-story, An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids (1861). [23] It also features regularly in Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody novels. [24] [25] [26]
The modern "Shepheard Hotel" was erected in 1957 by Egyptian Hotels Ltd. in Garden City, Cairo, about 0.8 kilometres (0.50 mi) from the site of the original hotel. The new hotel, and the land on which it stands, is owned by E.G.O.T.H. (The Egyptian General Company for Tourism & Hotels). The hotel was managed by Helnan International Hotels and known as the Helnan Shepheard Hotel. [4] On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Rocco Forte Hotels would completely renovate the property and reopen it under their own management in 2012. [27] The renovations never happened, and the hotel closed in 2014. [28] In March 2020, [29] E.G.O.T.H. signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia's AlSharif Group Holding to finance developing and furnishing the renovation worth $90 million. In 2021, it was announced that Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group had been selected to operate the renovated hotel. [30] In 2022, a reopening date was set for 2024. [31]
The King David Hotel is a 5-star hotel in Jerusalem and a member of The Leading Hotels of the World. Opened in 1931, it was built with locally quarried pink limestone and was founded by Ezra Mosseri, a wealthy Egyptian Jewish banker. It is located on King David Street in the centre of Jerusalem, overlooking the Old City and Mount Zion, and is named after the Biblical King David.
Egypt was a major battlefield in the North African campaign during the Second World War, being the location of the First and Second Battles of El Alamein. Legally an independent kingdom since 1922, and an equal sovereign power in the condominium of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in reality Egypt was heavily under the coercive influence of the United Kingdom, a state of affairs that had persisted since the United Kingdom intervened militarily in the Orabi Revolt in favour of Egypt's Khedive, Tawfik Pasha, in 1882, subsequently occupying the country.
The North African campaign of the Second World War took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria, as well as Tunisia. The campaign was fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German-occupied Europe. The United States officially entered the war in December 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942.
Raffles Hotel is a British colonial-style luxury hotel in Singapore. It was established by Armenian hoteliers, the Sarkies Brothers, in 1887. The hotel was named after British statesman Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore.
Crocodile on the Sandbank is a historical mystery novel by Elizabeth Peters, first published in 1975. It is the first in the Amelia Peabody series of novels and takes place in 1884-1885.
Seeing a Large Cat is the ninth novel in the Amelia Peabody historical mystery series by Elizabeth Peters, first published in 1997. The story takes place in Egypt during the archaeological dig season of 1903-1904.
Five Graves to Cairo is a 1943 war film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Franchot Tone and Anne Baxter. Set in World War II, it is one of a number of films based on Lajos Bíró's 1917 play Hotel Imperial: Színmű négy felvonásban, including the 1927 film Hotel Imperial. Erich von Stroheim portrays Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in a supporting performance.
The Grand Hotel des Bains is a former luxury hotel on the Lido of Venice in northern Italy. Built in 1900 to attract wealthy tourists, it is remembered amongst other things for Thomas Mann's stay there in 1911, which inspired his novella Death in Venice. Luchino Visconti's film of the novella was shot there in 1971.
The Greek government-in-exile was formed in 1941, in the aftermath of the Battle of Greece and the subsequent occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The government-in-exile was based in Cairo, Egypt, and hence it is also referred to as the "Cairo Government". It was the internationally recognised government during the years of the Axis occupation of Greece.
This article discusses the problem represented by land mines in North Africa, the consequent suffering of its peoples, and how the countries in the region deal with this problem.
The Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo is a luxury hotel that is located at Place du Casino in Monte Carlo, Monaco. It was opened in 1864 as part of the development of Monaco by the Société des Bains de Mer. In March 2019, the hotel reopened after undergoing a $280 million renovation, which took more than four years to complete.
The Camels are Coming is a 1934 British comedy adventure film directed by Tim Whelan and starring Jack Hulbert, Anna Lee, Hartley Power and Harold Huth. A British officer in the Royal Egyptian Air Force combats drug smugglers.
Parliamentary elections were held in two stages in Egypt in 1923 and 1924, the first since nominal independence from the United Kingdom in 1922. The result was a victory for the Wafd Party, which won 188 of the 215 seats.
Sophie Moss was a Polish noblewoman and World War II organiser. At the request of Władysław Sikorski, Poland's wartime leader, she founded the Cairo branch of the Polish Red Cross.
The Cairo fire, also known as Black Saturday, was a series of riots that took place on 26 January 1952, marked by the burning and looting of some 750 buildings—retail shops, cafes, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, theatres, nightclubs, and the city's Casino Opera —in downtown Cairo. The direct trigger of the riots was the Battle of Ismailia, an attack on an Egyptian police installation in Ismaïlia by British forces on 25 January, in which roughly 50 auxiliary policemen were killed.
The Grand Hotel Tripoli, also known as Funduq-Al-Kabir Hotel in Arabic, is a defunct hotel on El-Fatah Street in Tripoli, Libya.
The Windsor Hotel is a historic hotel in downtown Cairo, Egypt. Constructed in 1893, it is located near Opera Square and across Alfi Bey Street from the site of the former Shepheard's Hotel, of which it once served as an annex. During the First World War, it served as a British Officers Club, and much of its interior and furnishings date to this period. It has been called "an unrestored ode to the days of British colonial travel."
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Cairo, Egypt.
The suffering bastard is the name for two different mixed drinks, one being more of a standard cocktail associated with World War II and the other being more of an exotic drink associated with Tiki bars. As is the case with many cocktails, there are multiple recipe variations and historical origins have been argued and changed over time. Two of the earliest recipe versions have very different ingredients. One from bartender Joe Scialom (1942) calls for brandy and gin, while another from Tiki pioneer Victor J. Bergeron primarily uses rum along with "secret ingredients" and is known for being garnished with a cucumber.
Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti'i was the Grand Mufti of Egypt, judge in the Shari'a Courts, rector of al-Azhar, and one of the leading Hanafi-Maturidi scholars of his time. He was educated at al-Azhar and was teaching in this university for several years. In 1914 he was appointed mufti, a title he held for seven years. He was known as the bitterest foe of the Islamic Reform movement led by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad 'Abduh. He was also known as a devout scholar who chose to lose his position as mufti rather than bow to government pressure to issue a particular fatwa.
