175th Anniversary

From December 2012, Rocco Forte’s Brown’s Hotel is celebrating its 175th Anniversary, with a series of events, promotions and activities for the year ahead.

Throughout 2013, there will be a series of celebratory events, special menus in HIX Mayfair and anniversary cocktails in The Donovan Bar to mark this milestone in the hotel’s history.

In 1837, James Brown, Lord Byron’s butler and his wife Sarah, who was Lady Byron’s maid, acquired 23 Dover Street and by mid 1838, had expanded into numbers 21,22 and 24, to create Brown’s Hotel.

Throughout the years, Brown’s has welcomed numerous famous guests and is steeped in fascinating history. Alexander Graham Bell made the first UK telephone call from the hotel in 1876, Rudyard Kipling wrote ‘The Jungle Book’ whilst staying at Brown’s, Queen Victoria visited the hotel regularly, as did crime writer Agatha Christie, who even based her novel, “At Bertram’s Hotel” on Brown’s Hotel.

In December 2005, Sir Rocco Forte took to the helm of Brown’s Hotel, and with the help of his sister, Director of Design, Olga Polizzi, has over the past seven years, created a well-loved quintessentially English hotel with contemporary twists to its design. Today Brown’s remains in fashion and is frequented by artists and fashionistas from Tracey Emin and Paul Smith to Nicholas Kirkwood and Stella McCartney, as well as from the wider art, music and literary world.

Commenting on the milestone anniversary, Brown’s Hotel’s General Manager, Stuart Johnson said: “Brown’s has been at the heart of Mayfair life for decades, and every day we see history being made within its walls. 2013 will be historic for Brown’s and we look forward to welcoming guests to stay in its 175th year to celebrate with us, and to relax in this hotel of which we are all so proud, and which remains the place to be seen. Guests return to Brown’s because it becomes a second home. One guest, when asked in which London hotel he stayed, responded, ‘I don’t stay in a hotel. I stay at Brown’s’ and this continues to ring true amongst guests today.”