Which were India's earliest 'modern' hotels? Kolkata was perhaps the site of the first hotel in India. Although Kochi too had a rather old hotel dating back to the days of the Dutch likely or maybe the British. During the era of colonial rule in India, hotels were established primarily to cater to British officials, travellers, nobility. Many reflected stunning architectural elegance.
Hotels, Kolkata's particularly, became the centre of social life and were places to be seen at. According to The Calcutta Cookbook, that chronicles the city, at Great Eastern, in 1883, 'a man could walk in at one end, buy a complete outfit, a wedding present, or seeds for the garden, have an excellent meal, a burra peg (double) and if the barmaid was agreeable, walk out at the other end engaged to be married'.
Built in 1830, near the then Government House (Raj Bhavan), Spence's Hotel is often cited as the 1st hotel in Asia. It no longer exists but lives on in literature and history -- The Steam House by Jules Vernes. The unfortunate Maharaja Duleep Singh, heir to the Sikh Empire, was able to meet his mom here, who had not met since the age of 10 because of the Brit's unfair Treaty of Lahore.
Said to be the oldest hotel of charming Fort Kochi, the 300-year-old Dutch style mansion/building, became a hotel (date unknown) and then subsequently served as a home for those working with local British tea-broking company before reopening as a hotel again in 2006, after it was restored by German architect Karl Damschen.
Till 15 yrs ago, it was a rambling, semi-abandoned hotel, famed for its ghost tales. In its heyday, it was a luxury retreat of the British Raj, with its own post office, unlimited banquet rooms & faciities including a snooker room, under whose table a panther was once spied. Begun in 1838, ITC took it over in 2009. Famous guests: Jawaharlal Nehru, Mary of Teck (then Princess of Wales), Pearl S Buck, Haille Selassie.
Kolkata's snobbiest 19 c. address, known as the Jewel of the East, this fabulous hotel came up in 1840-1841 with 100 rooms & its own store below; was first called the Auckland Hotel. Famous guests: Ho Chi Minh (maybe), Rudyard Kipling, Queen Elizabeth II, Nikita Krushchev, Mark Twain. At its dreariest when WB govt run, after extensive renovations, it reopened as The LaLiT Great Eastern Kolkata in 2013.
Simple-looking Tendril Cottage in Shimla, where Rudyard Kipling would often stay and write (including it was believed Plain Tales From The Hills), became a hotel in 1884 and later the Oberoi group's flagship hotel, when a hotel boiler room employee named Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi bought it in 1944.
Monarchs, nobility, senior colonial officials, tea estate managers have stayed at the pretty colonial hotel, with carefully preserved Raj charm, and a feel more reminiscent of western England than a Himalayan hill station. First a boarding house in the late 1880s, in 1939 local entrepreneurs purchased Ada Villa, perched on Darjeeling’s Observatory Hill, to make it a hotel and whimsically called it Windamere.
Started as a 10-bed boarding house in 1887, operated by a Mrs Bronson for a predominantly military town. 1912: Spencer's bought for Rs 4,000. 1984: Taj Group purchased. From early days, its Anglo-Indian cuisine was celebrated. Famous guests: Devika Rani, Prince Charles, Winston Churchill, Jagirdar of Arni for 36 years, Raja of Chettinad, David Lean (footage for Passage to India), Rex Harrison.
In 1888, Gulmarg had an Italian visitor. Architect Michael Adam Nedou arrived from Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) and built his second & rather picturesque Indian hotel in the winter resort town. He settled down in Kashmir (his granddaughter marrying into the Abdullah family) and his third hotel opened in Srinagar in 1900 and was then the fashionable, partying hub of the city.
This building across the street from Lion's Gate, next to the Church of St Andrew, had several avatars -- home of famous Bombay governor, William Hornby; next Admiralty House for commander-in-chief of the Indian fleet; next chief court of Bombay and 1893 it became the Great Western Hotel, which closed in the mid-1900s perhaps.
Delhi came a little late to the hotel game although probably the city once had its share of saraikhanas and dharamshalas. Imperial and Oberoi Maidens were two of the oldest hotels. Maidens, originally called Metropolitan Hotel, owned by the Maiden brothers, had a run on its rooms when it began in 1903, because the Lord Curzon-hosted Coronation Durbar was in progress.
European-only Watson's Hotel's decline was directly linked to the rise of the extremely imposing Taj hotel, which opened in 1903 for people all skin colours. Facing the Gateway of India, built in Indo-Saracenic style, it was one of the finest hotels in the East. Famous guests (too many to name): Queen Elizabeth II & Prince Philip, Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali, Gregory Peck.