Grand Hotel et de Milan *****

The interior of the Grand Hotel et de Milan, discreet and refined, conquers with the unique atmosphere of its rooms enriched during the time with exclusive objects and furniture that are now part of its history. The rooms perfectly preserve the period furniture and details, as well as the parquet floors and the Italian marbles that decorate the wide bathrooms.
The recent renewal, entrusted to Dimore Studio of Milan, has given to the various environments a contemporary touch while maintaining at the same time the allure intact, with an intervention that has been focused on fabrics, carpets, colours and decorations.
Every single detail has been conceived paying particular attention to the environment and the chromatic dominant in which is set, linked to the latter with harmonious or in contrast elements.
The passage of distinguished guests that have chosen the Grand Hotel et de Milan throughout the years as their "Milanese house" is celebrated by the dedicated suites. Each of them is characterized by a selection of objects, photos, autographic documents and other memories, belonged to the personage or ascribable to his/her life. Giuseppe Verdi, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Maria Callas, Giorgio Strehler, Enrico Caruso are only some of the personalities to whichhotel suites and junior suites have been named after.
Each room is equipped with air conditioning and central heating, minibar, flat-screen television, radio, security box, wide marble bathrooms with en-suite telephone, exclusive toiletries and cosmetics by Etro, 24-hour room service.

▪  Giorgio Strehler - 206  ▪

Apartment 206 is dedicated to Giorgio Strehler. He arrived very young to Milan where he met Franco Parenti and Paolo Grassi that together with him and Nina Vinchi set up in 1947 the Piccolo Teatro della Città di Milano (small theatre of the city of Milan), giving life to stage fittings that shaped the history of theatre, such as the “Albergo dei poveri by Gorkij and I giganti della montagna by Pirandello.

▪  The Verdi Suite  ▪

The Grand Hotel et de Milan Presidential suite is dedicated to Maestro Giuseppe Verdi. The Maestro chose to stay in the suite 105 of the once called "Albergo di Milano", to be able to alternate his city life to the quieter and more relaxing life of his country house of Sant' Agata.
The room is made up of a wide and well-lit room with original period chimney and furniture, a bedroom and two bathrooms. The suite has been recently restored and it is today more elegant than ever. The bedroom and the sitting room can be taken separately and the Verdi room can be turned into a wonderful period setting, perfect for a stay, receptions and business meetings in a refined retro atmosphere.

▪  The Dom Pedro II Suite  ▪

▪  Deluxe Oriental Suite  ▪

▪  Classic Room  ▪

A CENTURY AND A HALF OF MILANESE HISTORY SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS GUESTS OF ITS OLDEST HOTEL.

The project was entrusted to architect Andrea Pizzala, known mainly for having designed the Galleria De Cristoforis in 1831 in Milan.
The building was smaller than it is now. A building with an eclectic style which façade and ornaments have many decorative references to the neo-gothic repertoire. These cultured references were taken from works published in those years and inspired by the English Romantic Movement: what it commonly referred to as the “Gothic Revival”.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the hotel acquired significant importance, as it was the only hotel in Milan to offer postal and telegraph services. For this reason the hotel was often used by diplomats and businessmen. The hotel had approximately two hundred rooms, a “Stigler” hydraulic lift (recovered during the recent renovation work and still currently in use), a small winter garden and lavishly furnished dining rooms.
Among the most prestigious guests of the Grand Hotel et de Milan, we can mention Master Giuseppe Verdi who decided to stay here from 1872, alternating his business life in the city with the relaxing environment of his country home in Sant' Agata. In those years, Verdi spent a long time working on “Othello” and then “Falstaff”. For Verdi, the “Milan” hotel was in a strategic location: just few steps from La Scala opera house and opposite Via Bigli, where a good friend of his used to live, Countess Clara Maffei. At that time, the Countess was distraught at the death of her only daughter and she resumed her social life only after the launch of a cultural salon in her house. Thanks to the Countess' salon, which was attended by people like Manzoni, Cattaneo, Correnti, Manara, Balzac and Rossini, Verdi, who was tormented by the death of his wife and children, managed to find new inspiration, which eventually led him to his “Nabucco” triumph.
After forty years of absence and fifteen of silence, on February 5th 1887, Verdi came back to the stage of La Scala with “Othello”. It was a great day. The city was already buzzing in the early afternoon. On that winter day, everyone was in the streets: barrel-organs played Verdi tunes and everywhere people shouted “Long live V.E.R.D.I. !”, a slogan with a double meaning: not only did it cheer on the Maestro, but the exclamation also stood for “Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia” (Long Live Vittorio Emanuele King of Italy).
As was customary for successful theatre events, after the first “Othello” performance, the carriage that was taking Verdi back to the “Milan” (as the Grand Hotel et de Milan was then affectionately called) was detached from its horses and drawn by the people of Milan. Once Verdi got to his hotel room, people gathered under the balcony of his room and started to call out his name. the maestro came to the window with tenor Tamagno who sang some of the arias of the opera to the delirious crowd.
Just as many people waited outside the “Milan” when Verdi was seriously ill. Two or three times a day, the Director affixed notes about the Maestro's condition on the wall near the entrance to the hotel. Straw was scattered on Via Manzoni to cushion the noise made by carriages and horses so as not to disturb the Maestro as he lay dying. Still today, there is a plate on one of the hotel walls stating: “This house holds the memory of Giuseppe Verdi who was a prestigious guest and who died here on January 27th 1901. This plate was affixed on the first anniversary of his death by the municipality of Milan and with the unanimous consensus of the people to remember the maestro who revived Italian hearts with celestial harmonies, desire and hope for a motherland”.
On the afternoon of April 30th 1888, the owner of the hotel, Mr. Spatz, and his entire staff welcomed their Majesties Emperor Don Pedro II of Braganza and Empress Thresa Christina of Bourbon. For the occasion, Spatz had the royal apartments redecorated along with the entrance and the staircase of the hotel. The entire hotel was surrounded by a lush tropical garden.
During his stay, the Emperor fell seriously ill with pleurisy. His return to Brazil was postponed in order to enable his daughter, Donna Isabella, to sing the famous and criticised law that abolished slavery in Brazil. To celebrate this event, Spatz commissioned an allegorical statue depicting a feathered Indian that “kills the slavery snakes”. The statue is still kept in the hotel entrance.
In April 1902 the great tenor Enrico Caruso, who was in Milan to sing at La Scala Opera House in a new opera directed by Toscanini called “Germania”, arrived at the hotel. Fred Gaisberg, a pioneer of phonographic recording at the “Gramophone Company”, was enthused by Caruso's voice but the Gramophone Company, which intention was to record an album, pulled out after being informed that Caruso requested £100 pounds for agreeing to record. At that point, Gaisberg decided to sponsor him personally. The recording of the first flat LP in the history of music thus took place in an apartment of the Grand Hotel et de Milan. Caruso, standing before a metallic funnel, which was separated, from a strange recording device by a wall, sang ten opera arias. The recording took two hours. In the end, Caruso cashed his £100 pounds and went for lunch. Gaisberg had a great idea when he decided to sponsor the man who then became one of the most famous tenors in the world.
And we are now in the 1920s. One of the most extraordinary guests was Tamara de Lempicka, “femme fatale” painter and true daughter of the crazy years.
The beautiful Polish painter was invited to the “Milan” by writer Gabriele D'Annunzio who seemed to be in love with her and that would have like her to paint his portrait at the Vittoriale. In the apartment dedicated to her, there are some letters that testify the intense correspondence between Tamara and Gabriele.
The Grand Hotel et de Milan was completely renovated in 1931 and equipped with bathrooms with modern fittings, running water and a telephone in every room. Its glamorous American Bar was attended by high society. The restaurant, already the most talked about in the city, boasted a refined cuisine and impeccable service.
In 1943, following a terrible bombing (which also hit La Scala), the entire fourth floor was destroyed. Subsequently, the Military Staff of the 5th American Brigade took charge of the hotel. The “Milan” became a place for holiday rewards for ally soldiers. At some point, the hotel even had its own “Military Chief”. Parties, balls and concerts were held in the luxurious and exclusive “restaurant”.
On June 24th 1946, the hotel finally found peace.
Once again, the “Milan” resurrected from the ashes by keeping its prestige intact. The work started by architect Giovanni Muzio (main representative of the Modern Movement) immediately after the war to restore the oldest and most prestigious Milan hotel was long and hard.
Maria Meneghini Callas often stayed at the Grand Hotel et de Milan between 1950 and 1952 when attending performances at La Scala.
She and Meneghini, her first husband, could argue for hours in reception in front of their open security box over the choice of jewels to wear.
In 1969, with the new management, entrepreneurial Manilo Bertazzoni decided that it was time to revamp the main hall and the other hotel reception rooms to give a more lively touch to the 1940s furniture. The presence of his daughter Daniela and her partner, fashion photographer Rocco Mancino, madethe “Milan” a reference point for photographers, models, designers, artists and all the “beautiful world” that moved around them. It became a set for photo shoots and fashion shows.
For the first time ever, the hotel was used as a place to display yet unknown fashion designers. During fashion week, it was not difficult to meet young fashion designers who had set up their own showrooms in the most unusual places for that time. Every corner of the hotel was used for this purpose: the hall, the bedrooms, the cloakrooms on the ground floor and even the old Stigler lift – then out of order and stuck on the ground floor – were all used to display the most varied fashion accessories. A period Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, with a uniformed chauffeur, was parked in front of the hotel entrance waiting to take hotel guests wherever they wanted to. The “Milan” had become a fun and fashionable hotel.
The beginning of the 1970s saw the boom of the Italian “pret à porter”. On this occasion, the hotel opened officially to the fashion world. Ferré and his producer Mattioli used the hotel for their first defile. Many other were “baptised” here before undertaking the road towards celebrity. This was the beginning of the high life with concert-tea events at 5 o'clock, Scaligeri cocktails on December 7th and Great Galas on New Year's Eve
The “Milan” was always a sort of “Annexe” to La Scala. One of its habitual guests, Severino Gazzelloni, a famous flautist nicknamed the “Golden Flute”, used to rehearse here quietly in the early afternoon. Many rooms were connecting, even though with double locked doors. The Maestro heard a knocking sound and thought he was making too much noise and came down an octave. He heard a knocking sound again so he turned the volume of his music down even more, making it almost imperceptible. At that point, a woman's soft voice begged him to play louder so that she could enjoy the beautiful sound from the privacy of her room.
Vittorio De Sica was another habitual guest. In 1974, for a shot of his film “Il Viaggio” (in which he starred with Sophia Loren), it was staged a bedroom in the living room of what was once Verdi's apartment. Richard Burton and the young AnnabellaIncontrera occupied the alcove. Often, you could meet Burton in the bar lounges while he was sipping a glass of vodka.
During the most recent important renovation works carried out between 1990 and 1993, part of the great defence wall built in 250 A.D. by Emperor Maximian was brought to light. This represents an important feature for Milan's defence, symbol and border of the city. The core of the structure is made of a conglomerate of shingles and brick fragments bound together by a very strong grout. Today, the carefully restored remains of this wall can be seen on the way down form the Don Carlos restaurant to its wine cellar. The ruins are placed at the centre of the room and are surrounded by very prestigious Italian and international wines.
The important renovation work has enabled some of the last architecture that had been erased by previous renovation work to come to light, such as the granite pillars in the bar and main hall and the old lift.
The careful restoration work on the monumental parts and the functional and technological upgrading work performed to meet regulations and standards have returned the Grand Hotel et de Milan to its original splendour by preserving intact the old charm of the 19th century aristocratic Milan residence.
From among our many friends, a special thank you go to Franco Maria Ricci, Touring Club Italiano, La Scala Theatre, Enrico Caruso Musuem, Mr. Mazzocchi, Dr Eng. Buccolier.

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