The Peninsula London in the Belgravia neighborhood , alongside Hyde Park Corner and Wellington Arch .
COVER STORY
Peninsula Hotels has a storied past .
IT INFORMS ITS FUTURE .
NEW ADDITIONS IN ISTANBUL AND LONDON HELP CELEBRATE ALMOST 100 YEARS OF OPERATION .
By DAVID EISEN
The story of Peninsula Hotels in many ways is a tale of resolve and intuition .
It ’ s a saga of dynastic clans , two prominent Jewish families from Baghdad that in no small way helped build modernday China . The Sassoons on one side , the Kadoories on the other , but Hatfield- McCoy this was not . Their competition was not of bloodshed or violence , but of commercial and financial dominance in and across Asia .
Consider Shanghai , the " Paris of the East ," where both families owned competing hotels at one point . The Sassoons had the Cathay Hotel ( the present-day Fairmont Peace Hotel ); the Kadoories had the Majestic . In this case , the Sassoons won out , with their hotel considered more modern , including boasting such amenities as indoor plumbing . It was the 1920s , after all .
The Kadoories sold the Majestic in 1930 , but it was a hotel it previously started
52 hotelsmag . com September 2023