It is among the most iconic hotels in the world and being its general manager is the job to which many in the industry aspire. ABTN speaks to Stephan Interthal, the current general manager of the Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Berlin
A milestone in the return of the Unter den Linden, the magnificent Berlin boulevard, to its past glories was the re-opening in 1997 of the Hotel Adlon. In an avenue packed with grand buildings, including museums, the opera house, Humboldt University and the massive Russian Embassy, this iconic building with its green roof and grandiose facade, still dominates.
Its location, next to the beautiful Pariser Platz and yards from that other great symbol of Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate, could hardly be improved. Right from its opening in 1907 by the German king Wilhelm II, it has been the place to be seen.
"It was really the place in the 1920s and 1930s," Stephan Interthal, managing director of the Adlon, said. "It was the first hotel to have running water and electricity, so it was exceptional right from the start. It was not just the place in Berlin but in Germany and Europe as well. It is among the top, top hotels of the world."
It was Lorenz Adlon - the hotel's Michelin starred restaurant is named after him - a Berlin wine merchant and restaurateur who first opened the hotel in 1097 before passing the business onto his son Louis. In its heyday guests included Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich and the US president Herbert Hoover.
In walking distant of the US, Russian, British and French Embassies and the then German Chancellery, it was also a hang out for diplomats, politicians and journalists during the 30s.
It stayed open during World War II - the British writer P.G. Wodehouse was an involuntary guest after being capture by the Germans in France - but, having escaped the war largely unscathed, it was accidentally burned down by Russian soldiers in May 1945. After a short life as a 2-star hotel, it finally shut its doors in 1960 and, close to the No Man's Land of the infamous Berlin Wall, the building was left to decay.
It was in the late 1960s, Mr Interthal said, that Kempinski bought the name from the Adlon family - the grandson Percy now lives in Los Angeles but is a regular visitor to the hotel - and when the wall came down in 1989 began to attract financiers and investors to restore the Adlon to its old self.
This was completed in 1997 with the faced carefully restored, using the original drawings. The main difference was that extra rooms and more space for meetings and banquets were built in. It is now a hotel with 304 rooms, 78 suites including three presidential suites, all with
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Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Berlin |
24-hour room and laundry service, internet access and, if required, a private butler. The meetings facilities include two ballrooms fro 400 people, two wintergarden rooms, a selection of conference rooms and six salons which can also be used for private dining.
"We think we have recaptured its place as an iconic hotel since it re-opened. The Adlon is more than a hotel, it is a hotel icon. It is synonymous with the hotel industry. Nine out of ten people will know it is a famous hotel," said Mr Interthal, a 50-year-old German from the pretty town of Wetzlar, 30 miles north of Frankfurt.
Recent guests have included the British Queen Elizabeth II, her son Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall as well as numerous senior politicians and celebrities from the entertainment world.
"Our clientele is business and high end leisure guests and upscale groups for meetings," Mr Interthal said. "The majority come from Germany but we get a lot of business people from the US and the UK although that in the last years has slowed because of the financial and economic crisis."
With the hotel serving the top end of the market, the focus has been on room yield and rates rather than occupancy levels, He said.
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The lobby of the Hotel Adlon |
But Mr Interthal said that the meetings business had "softened" in recent months with low demand. But the hotel was still attracting a lot of political meetings and financial institutions although this had also slowed down in recent months. However business was a now picking up with Mr Interthal expecting better business in September and October.
Mr Interthal's own career reads like journey around some of the most prestigious hotels in Europe. He started in the InterContinental in Hamburg before s qualifying as a chef and taking a management course at the city's Hotel Trade School.
He followed this with more study at Cornell University in the States and then worked for Renaissance Hotels in Germany, Hilton in Chicago and as director of F&B at the vast Sheraton Frankfurt where in1989 he became resident manager.
He joined Kempinski in 1993 to open and manage its new build hotel at Munich Airport before taking up the role of general manger at another new Kempinski hotel the Corvinus in Budapest. In 2004, he moved back to Munich to manage and oversee major changes at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski (Four Seasons) before joining the Adlon in 2006.
There he has overseen the constant improvements a hotel of this standards needs, including a new business centre, an upgraded spa and an upgraded presidential suite. "At the Adlon there is always something going on in terms of renovation. We can't allow it to stand still even for six months," he said, referring to the competition from other 5-star properties in the city.
Like other hoteliers in the German capital, he thinks there are now enough but at least one more is in the pipeline.
But the Adlon will stay the place to be. "It is absolutely the hotel many people aspire to manage. Managing the Adlon is really something exceptional. It is the highlight of my career so far.
"It is the most exciting job but at the same time, it is also a challenge."