Yangon’s historic Strand Hotel, which has stood on the city’s riverside since the colonial era, is about to undergo a major makeover, according to design plans unveiled to the media yesterday.
The 115-year-old luxury hotel will shut its doors for six months starting May 1 as extensive renovations are carried out for the first time since 1993.
The new look is a contemporary twist on the classic colonial style dating back to 1901, when the hotel was opened by the Sarkies brothers, Armenian hoteliers credited with a roster of iconic establishments including Singapore’s Raffles Hotel.
“Now it’s the time after 23 years to give a new breath to the place,” said Olivier Trinquand, vice-president of The Strand Hotel & Cruise.
He stressed that no structural changes would be made and classic colonial features – marble flooring, ceiling fans and lacquer wood furniture – would remain. But rooms are underdoing a major redesign, with new paint jobs, a strong black-white color scheme and updated light fixtures.
“We are absolutely not touching the soul of the hotel,” he said. “We are just purely going into interior design.”
The Strand Hotel’s cafe and tea-room as it looks today. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
The Strand Hotel’s cafe and tea-room as it will look after renovation. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
New water pipes and air-conditioning units will be installed in the 31 rooms and, for the first time, the hotel will have a pool.
“Over the last few years obviously it’s been neglected,” operations manager Mark Murraybrown told Coconuts Yangon. “The last proper renovation was in ’93 when it re-opened [after three years of building work]. It’s 115 years old. It just has a little wear and tear, you know, we have things like pipes that have burst…”
The hotel’s bar as it looks today. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
New designs indicate what the bar will look like when the hotel re-opens in early November. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
The hotel has employed a new roster of international staff including an Italian chef and a bar manager to plans to add new drinks – including infused gins – to the menu.
They will eventually hire a sommelier, according to Murraybrown.
“It’s taking fine dining to a new level,” he said.
The hotel has seen some history. In its early years, guests included George Orwell and W. Somerset Maugham. When the Japanese occupied the country during World War Two, they took over the Strand and stabled horses in its bar. Then came decades of neglect under the military junta that seized power in 1962.
In 1979, Lonely Planet writer Tony Wheeler stayed there and found a “tatty and dilapidated” rat-infested colonial relic. After three years of renovation work, the hotel re-opened in 1993.
The Strand’s restaurant, as it stands today. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
Plans for the re-designed restaurant. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
Now the hotel is entering a new phase, Trinquand said, that will restore its place as “the finest hostelry East of Suez” as John Murray declared in his Handbook for Travelers written in the early 1900s.
Vice-president Olivier Trinquand walks the media through one of the new-look rooms. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
Travelers will have to wait until early November to experience the new hotel. After all, change comes slowly.
Showing off the new remote-controlled curtains in one of the revamped model rooms yesterday, Trinquand pressed a button and waited. For a long time, nothing happened. And then, finally and with a sudden lurch, they opened.
