I
I as soon as slept in Sir David Attenborough’s mattress. Or not less than I feel I did. I used to be at a riverside Sukau Rainforest Lodge, set deep within the orangutan-inhabited jungles of Sabah, the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, the place there have been two single beds within the suite named in tribute to that almost all cherished of nonagenarians.
As I are likely to do in such configured rooms when travelling solo, I unfold, nay dumped, most of my private results on one of many vacant in any other case undisturbed single beds (not fairly however there is not any one else round to care, least all of Sir David himself) and sleep within the different one.
Due to this fact on the finish of every day’s wildlife viewing, I by no means bought round to attempting out that different mattress by which the good man, who had used the lodge as his BBC nature documentary filming base, might properly have slumbered.
Naming rooms after well-known figures is without doubt one of the oldest tips in a hotelier’s visitor e book and why not? Friends love the bragging rights and the heavy air of historical past of such rooms and suites.
Pop a plaque on the room door and some archival photographs and you’ve got a possible advertising edge and the chance to use your resort’s heritage.
One institution the place the artwork of naming rooms has been roughly perfected is the atmospheric Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, Vietnam, courting to 1901. It boasts a Somerset Maugham Room, a Charlie Chaplin Room and a Graham Greene Room, all former distinguished friends.
Elsewhere world wide, and proving one would not must be deceased to have a room devoted, there’s the Venus Williams V Suite on the Resort at Midtown, Chicago; the J.Okay Rowling Suite at The Balmoral, Edinburgh; the Francis Ford Coppola Francis Suite at Palazzo Margherita, Bernalda and ok
A lot nearer to house, and on the absolute reverse excessive from that Paltrow pad, there’s the room on the early twentieth century Resort Kurrajong in Canberra by which the previous Australian Labor prime minister Ben Chifley resided when within the capital.
It was in 1951 that Chifley, hardly ever pictured with out his pipe, collapsed in his room as the results of a coronary whereas within the firm of his secretary Phyllis Donnelly. The Sydney Morning Herald reported the following day that she had “taken in some newspapers” on the time. He was pronounced lifeless on admission at hospital,
Chifley, Prime Minister from 1945 to 1949, was opposition chief by that point and had lived on the Kurrajong all through a lot of his parliamentary profession, eschewing The Lodge which opened in 1926, the identical 12 months because the Kurrajong itself.
Previous Parliament Home is a mere 700-metre stroll from Resort Kurrajong. In the present day on the stroll there from the resort you possibly can see Peter Corlett’s charming statue of Chifley within the firm of fellow Labor PM and Kurrajong resident John Curtin, depicting the pair strolling to work collectively.
Poor previous Curtin, worn out by the immense pressures of being a wartime prime minister with the perceived, although most likely not actual, risk of Japanese invasion, additionally succumbed to a coronary heart assault whereas in workplace, with Chifley, his treasurer, changing him.
In the present day the Chifley Room on the Kurrajong is scattered with duplicate memorabilia from his day, together with his black felt hat and his signature pipe.
Resort room nomenclature could be a delicate enterprise and the discreet Kurrajong’s innkeepers do not spotlight the presumably salacious side of Chifley’s demise. What’s extra, there’s additionally a somewhat high quality line between who will get a room named after them and who would not.
Photograph: Provided
Nobody, apart from his indoctrinated Russian acolytes, would absolutely need to place a disposable resort slipper-clad toe, not to mention a complete foot, in a Vladimir Putin Room.
However a Volodymyr Zelenskyy suite? Effectively, that may absolutely be indefinitely booked out with all proceeds presumably going to Ukrainian refugees.
The Chifley Expertise at Resort Kurrajong Canberra begins from $389 an evening and consists of every day breakfast for 2, a $50 meals and beverage credit score and a tribute whisky on arrival for 2. See hotelkurrajong.com.au
The author stayed as a visitor of Resort Kurrajong.
