LEGEND
SIR MICHAEL KADOORIE
By BARBARA BOHN , MANAGING EDITOR
“
I ’ ve been very privileged in many ways in terms of where
.”
I find myself , Sir Michael Kadoorie says
YPENINSULA ’ S SIR MICHAEL KADOORIE BUILDS ON HIS FAMILY ’ S LEGACY OF LUXURY HOTELS IN KEY CAPITALS .
It is soon after sunrise on a February weekday , and he is sitting at a table in the L ’ oiseau Blanc , the rooftop restaurant of the Peninsula Paris , with Montmartre beyond his right shoulder and the Eiffel Tower at his left .
At 75 , he is at the pinnacle of a fortune in business holdings that includes Peninsula Hotels , and at a milepost in a journey begun by his family more than 120 years ago in Baghdad , via Bombay , and finally Shanghai and Hong Kong . His grandfather , Elly Kadoorie , started that journey , and his father and uncle continued it , marking successes , setbacks and world wars that played out at the hotels ’ front doors .
The Peninsula Paris was by turns a palace , a hotel , a World War I military hospital and the headquarters , in World War II , of the German high command during the French occupation . Gershwin wrote “ An American in Paris ” here . Kissinger signed the Paris Peace Accords in what is now the bar . The Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels Limited , which owns Peninsula and of which Kadoorie is chairman , purchased the building as the minority partner with Katara Hospitality and opened it in 2014 after a costly renovation .
April 2017 hotelsmag . com 17