DINING IN OPEN AIR

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 December 1929, Page 3

DINING IN OPEN AIR

LONDON’S NEW HOTEL. Cool, glittering, open-air restaurants high over Hyde Park is a dream of 1929, but it will be-a reality in 1931, when the new hotel is built on the site of Dorchester House, Park Lane. Sir Francis Towle, of Gorden Hotels, Ltd., said to a Daily Mail reporter: We intend to make it the most up-to-date hotel in the world - without resort to gadgets, and we intend to have open air restaurants. Height, size, area, method of construction, all isin the air, so to speak.. Much depends on ancient lights. There are more ancient lights protection ; round the site than anywhere in England. It may mean that we shall have to step the roof back in stages. The telephone system is one difficulty in the way of making it the most luxurious hotel in the world. In foreign countries page boys can carry round telephones which plug into any part of the wall, so that one can speak by telephone from almost any seat in the hotel. In Germany one can make any telephone connect direct to the public exchange oi' to the hotel’s private exchange by pressing a twopoint .button. In London such systems are regarded by the G.P.O. as “interference with the plant,” and are not permitted.