Hotel Le Plaza, Brussels

Le Plaza

Lobby
General information
Location Brussels
Address Boulevard Adolphe Max 118-126
Coordinates 50°51′16″N 4°21′23″E / 50.85444°N 4.35639°E / 50.85444; 4.35639Coordinates: 50°51′16″N 4°21′23″E / 50.85444°N 4.35639°E / 50.85444; 4.35639
Opening 1930 then 1996
Closed 1976
Owner Baron van Gysel de Meise
Technical details
Floor count 7
Design and construction
Architect Michel Polak
Other information
Number of rooms 190
Number of suites 14
Number of restaurants l'Estérel
Parking 1
Website
www.leplaza-brussels.com

The Hotel Le Plaza is one of the last independent hotels in Brussels, and also one of the most ancient. It was built in the early 1930s in a Louis XVI style, in the heart of Brussels.

History

main front in the early thirties
Main front in the early thirties

Under the reign of King Leopold II, Brussels was remodelled with large boulevards and green avenues. Mayor Jules Anspach (1829–1879) contributed to the transformation of the urban landscape of the capital by the realization of the thoroughfare from the North station to the South station.

It is precisely on this thoroughfare that the Hotel Le Plaza was built and opened its doors in 1930. Michel Polak, to whom the architecture was entrusted, found inspiration in the style of the Hôtel George-V in Paris, ensuring by its concrete ossature a remarkable solidity. The frontage was covered with French stones. The interior was designed to reflect the ideas of brightness and splendour: high ceilings, large corridors, big light rooms, several naturally lighted bathrooms, a majestic stairways covering 8 floors, decorated with stained glass windows and fringed with wrought iron hand-rails...

Very soon, prestigious guests came to the Hotel le Plaza, which became one of the symbols of the Brussels luxury hotel trade. In 1940, during the occupation, the hotel was placed under the authority of the German troops just as the great hotels of that time. The military commander for Belgium and the North of France took his quarters there. Premeditating its destruction, the Hotel Le Plaza was, exactly like the Palace of Justice, made into a booby-trap by the Germans, before the arrival of the Allied Forces. When it exploded, it killed two British Army officers: Captain George Hayton (age 32) and Major Anthony Wright (age 30) and destroyed the hotel's winter garden and sumptuous stained glass dome.[1] Shortly after the liberation, the British general staff occupied in its turn the prestigious palace: Sir Winston Churchill, Joseph Luns, who was secretary general of the NATO from 1971 to 1984, stayed there regularly.

Other important personalities of politics and finance were regular guests of the Hotel Le Plaza. But the hotel was most appreciated by the world of the arts and show business: Charles Aznavour, Jean Marais, Maurice Chevalier, Mistinguett, Louis Jouvet, Michèle Morgan, Gérard Philippe, Annie Cordy, Simone Signoret and Yves Montand, Luis Mariano, Gary Cooper, Raymond Devos, Georges Guétary, Josephine Baker, Fernandel, Lucienne Boyer, Charles Trenet, Martine Carol, Bourvil, Brigitte Bardot, Jean-Claude Pascal, Claudine Dupuis chose it as their favourite hotel in Brussels.

The song Indépendance Cha Cha was played for the first time in the hotel during the negotiations about Congolese independence from Belgium in 1960.

In the early seventies, a true revolution took place in the hotel and leisure world. People had more but shorter stays. The needs of the new travellers changed, stimulating the development of large hotel groups and of the Tour Operating. Moreover, the considerable public works in Brussels upset the economy of the neighbourhood, preventing even the access to the hotel.

The Hotel Le Plaza was obliged, like many of its contemporaries, to close in 1976.

the lobby in the early thirties
the lobby in the early thirties

Nowadays

Twenty years passed before the rebirth of the Hotel le Plaza under the impulse of its present owner, Baron van Gysel de Meise. With a view to give the building its original vocation back, while equipping it with the very latest applications of modern technique, the « Société de Gestion Hôtelière » undertook from February 1995 considerable renovation and fitting works for an investment of 400 million Belgian francs.

By respect for the tradition, the restoration works were placed under the direction of decorator Pierre-Yves Rochon – who was in particular in charge of the decoration of the Hotel George-V in Paris, and of Anne van Gysel, in order to recreate in the most faithful way the atmosphere of the past, combining the warmth of a tapestry from the « Manufactures Nationales » of Gobelins, the glossy shine of a rare marble and the diffused light created by chandeliers in amethyst cristal.

Rooms

The Plaza boasts 190 rooms and suites on 7 floors: 109 Traditional rooms, 53 Deluxe rooms, 20 Prestige rooms, 4 Executive Suites, 1 Plaza Suite and one presidential suite, which is one of the biggest in Benelux. Not a single initial volume was sacrificed, and the rooms (min. 35 m²) and suites with high ceilings are situated along large and spacious corridors.

The theatre

The Theatre of the Hotel Le Plaza is a former cinema with a surface of 460 square metres (5,000 sq ft), classified as a historical monument by Royal Decree. It was built in 1930, in a unique Spanish – Arab – Moorish style. Under the name of "Acropole Cinema", it opened in 1928 and had an interior designed in a Spanish style with many false windows and barley sugar columns. Seating was provided in stalls and balcony. At one time (possibly in the 1930s) it ran cine-variety shows and the Plaza was equipped with a Wurlitzer theatre organ.

The entrance to the cinema was located at the left-hand side of the twin-blocked building and originally had a large vertical 'PLAZA' sign over the entrance. There was a Plaza Taverne located on the corner of Adolphe Maxlann & Rue de Malines, now the main entrance to hotel. The rear of the building backs onto the former Varieties Theater (Cinerama) around the corner on the narrow Rue de Malines.

The decision was taken during the renovation to keep the original boxes, the genuine bracket-lamps, the stage as well as the richly sculpted wall ornaments of Andalusian inspiration. It is nowadays used as a banquet hall and conference facility.

The restaurant l'Estérel

This is a Function Room which, between the Versailles and Adolphe Max Rooms, features the particularity of combining the cozy atmosphere of a Bar with the distinction of a Restaurant for 48 guests.

Movies filmed at the Hotel

References

  1. ↑ http://www.britishlegion.be/pdf/Fact_sheet_no_2.pdf
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