The Fairmont Hamilton Princess - History

History

The 'Princess Hotel' opened its doors on January 1, 1885. Since then it has had a number of operators. Although recent operators have modified the name, sometimes prefixing that of their own group, to most Bermudians it remains "The Princess".

Bermuda had gained international recognition in 1883 when Princess Louise, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, visited for a winter retreat and called it a place of eternal spring. At the time, she lived in Canada with her husband, the Duke of Argyll, who was Governor General there. When the hotel opened it was named The Princess in honour of the royal visit two years earlier.

Bermuda's tourism had arisen without conscious planning, and the hotels previously available to the wealthy visitors who pioneered holidaying on the island were generally small and uninspiring. Bermudian business and political leaders realised a large, first-rate hotel was required. The development of the hotel hinged on American investment, however. Foreigners were not, then, permitted to buy land or businesses in Bermuda, lest their governments use protecting those interests as a pretext for invasion.

Bermuda was, at the time, considered by the UK government more as a naval and military base than as a colony (it housed the chief Royal Navy base in the western North Atlantic, and the attendant large military garrison. The military personnel made up a quarter of the population, and defence spending, not agriculture or tourism, was the central leg of the Bermudian economy. Many wealthy American visitors actually brought their daughters to holiday on the island specifically in hopes of marrying them to young aristocratic military or naval officers (this put them in competition with local women, but the Princess sponsored dances and other social gatherings to which the officers of the garrison were invited to mingle with guests).

The UK Government had been trying for years to encourage the Bermuda Government to raise its own part-time military units to allow the withdrawal of some of the regular army detachments (this was due to the immense costs of the garrisons in Bermuda and elsewhere, at a time when the Army was attempting to re-organise itself to be more effective. As the Army's budget was not being increased, this could only be achieved by redisposition of existing units. The Bermudian Government had long ignored these pleas, but needed the approval of the UK Government to allow US investment in the Princess, as well as to widen the channel into St. George's (necessary to allow that port to continue to thrive in an age where ships had grown too large to safely use the existing channel, but which it was argued would make an invader's task easier). The Secretary of State for War insisted he could not approve either project while Bermuda contributed nothing to her own defence.

Two Acts of the Bermudian Parliament authorised the creation in 1885 of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps and the Bermuda Militia Artillery, and the Princess project was allowed to move forward. "Defence, Not Defiance: A History Of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps", Jennifer M. Ingham (now Jennifer M. Hind), ISBN 0-9696517-1-6. Printed by The Island Press Ltd., Pembroke, Bermuda.

Harley Trott, a leading businessman at the time and head of Trott & Cox, the steamship agents and purveyors of meat for the British military, was determined to build a hotel that would attract affluent Americans, who would summer in the Berkshires and winter in Bermuda.

From the moment it opened, The Princess was considered the gem of the island. With long shady verandas and a blue slate roof, the four-story building comprised 70 rooms, each equipped with gas lights, hot and cold running water and a five-inch mirror to allow guests to primp before stepping out for the night. Staff dressed in white jackets and waving pink handkerchiefs greeted luxury liners.

As word got out, celebrities started to appear. Mark Twain, a regular at the hotel, loved to smoke cigars on the veranda and wartime guest Ian Fleming is said to have used its fish tank-lined Gazebo Bar as a motif in his novel, Dr. No.

In 1939, when the world went to war, The Fairmont Hamilton Princess was under British Censorship and home to Allied servicemen. The basement became an intelligence center and way station where all mail, radio and telegraphic traffic bound for Europe, the U.S. and the Far East were intercepted and analyzed by 1,200 censors, before being routed to their destination. Rumor has it that it was nicknamed 'Bletchley-in-the-Tropics' after the English country house where the Enigma code was broken (Sir William Stephenson, the Canadian-born British spymaster who was the subject of the book and film A Man Called Intrepid resided for a time at the Princess, following the war, before buying a home on the island, and was often visited there by his former subordinate, James Bond novelist Ian Fleming).

The years brought changes and in 1959, American tanker billionaire Daniel Ludwig purchased the hotel. As part of the deal to build a new luxury hotel - The Fairmont Southampton on the south shore - The Fairmont Hamilton Princess was renovated: a new wing built and lounges added.

The hotel was sold as part of a seven property deal by the British Lonmin plc on June 11, 1998 to the Canadian Pacific Railway for a combined price of GBP 331.75 million. The seven hotels were later spun off into the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts company. In 2007 the hotel was sold to Global Hospitality Investments, which continues to operate the hotel as part of the Fairmont chain. The Princess is the oldest hotel in the chain.

Recently renovated, the distinctive pink hotel continues to prosper as Bermuda's only urban resort.