Kiwi Curated
Favorite Hotels of Famous Authors
by Joy PecknoldThe easiest escape to take is by book. Real or imagined, stories whisk us away, simply requiring we turn a page. Authors draw inspiration from everywhere, and that includes within the walls of a hotel, as a quietly beautiful place to write or setting for their characters. Find your next great read and hotel room in our list of storied properties with literary connections.
Favorite Hotels of Famous Authors
Staking claim as Europe’s first “Grand Dame Hotel,” The Langham, London, has attracted quite the illustrious crowd of creatives in its more than 150 years. There’s a plaque on the exterior to prove it, which reads “Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle dined here with the publisher of ‘Lippincott’s Magazine’ on 30 August 1889, a meeting that led to ‘The Sign of Four’ & ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’.” In fact, Conan Doyle drops the hotel’s name in his Sherlock Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia.
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Retiring from Britain’s intelligence service after WWII, Ian Fleming holidayed in Jamaica every winter. Here at GoldenEye, in what’s now dubbed the Fleming Villa, he wrote all the James Bond novels. Buying the property in 1976, producer and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell gradually added more cottages and beach huts to make it an even dreamier seaside resort for celebrities and civilians alike.
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Following his 27-year imprisonment, Nelson Mandela stayed at this Johannesburg property and wrote his autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom. His friend Douw Steyn’s home at the time, Steyn made it into The Saxon Hotel, Villa and Spa and named the platinum suite for Mandela. There’s also a lounge named for another well-known guest and noted book lover, the one and only Oprah Winfrey.
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Rudyard Kipling first came to Brown’s Hotel on his honeymoon, but kept returning to write novels, including his most beloved, 1892’s The Jungle Book. There’s a dedicated Kipling Suite, where a letter he penned and posted from the hotel in 1919 hangs on the wall. Agatha Christie was also a frequent guest and based her novel Bertram’s Hotel on Brown’s.
VIEW HOTELFavorite Hotels of Famous Authors
The final chapter in the Harry Potter series was written here with the author leaving her mark on a marble bust in black ink to prove it: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007.” The Balmoral didn’t punish Rowling for defacing property, rather, given her fame, preserved the bust. They also renamed the suite in her honor and made a few magical improvements.
VIEW HOTELFavorite Hotels of Famous Authors
Graham Greene called the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel Hanoi home while working on his 1955 novel The Quiet American. In homage to the English writer, there’s a namesake suite dressed in French-Indochinese décor on the second floor, and at Le Club Bar you can order the same gin, cassis and dry vermouth cocktail he favored.
VIEW HOTELFavorite Hotels of Famous Authors
Ernest Hemingway is on The Westin Palace Madrid’s long register of famous fans. The American writer loved its basement jazz club and brewery, and worked the hotel into one of his books. Near the end of The Sun Also Rises, characters Jake and Brett drink dry martinis at the hotel’s bar, with Jake saying, “It’s funny what a wonderful gentility you get in the bar of a big hotel.”
VIEW HOTELFavorite Hotels of Famous Authors
Iconic in innumerable ways, The Plaza Hotel is loaded with literary cred. Author of the Eloise children’s books, Kay Thompson, lived at The Plaza, and so there’s a Betsey Johnson-designed pink suite inspired by the character. F. Scott Fitzgerald frequented the hotel too, and has his own suite dreamt up by Catherine Martin, co-producer and set designer of 2013’s The Great Gatsby film adaptation. To celebrate the success of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote held his very-exclusive Black and White Ball here too.
VIEW HOTELStaking claim as Europe’s first “Grand Dame Hotel,” The Langham, London, has attracted quite the illustrious crowd of creatives in its more than 150 years. There’s a plaque on the exterior to prove it, which reads “Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle dined here with the publisher of ‘Lippincott’s Magazine’ on 30 August 1889, a meeting that led to ‘The Sign of Four’ & ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’.” In fact, Conan Doyle drops the hotel’s name in his Sherlock Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia.
VIEW HOTELRetiring from Britain’s intelligence service after WWII, Ian Fleming holidayed in Jamaica every winter. Here at GoldenEye, in what’s now dubbed the Fleming Villa, he wrote all the James Bond novels. Buying the property in 1976, producer and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell gradually added more cottages and beach huts to make it an even dreamier seaside resort for celebrities and civilians alike.
VIEW HOTELFollowing his 27-year imprisonment, Nelson Mandela stayed at this Johannesburg property and wrote his autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom. His friend Douw Steyn’s home at the time, Steyn made it into The Saxon Hotel, Villa and Spa and named the platinum suite for Mandela. There’s also a lounge named for another well-known guest and noted book lover, the one and only Oprah Winfrey.
VIEW HOTELRudyard Kipling first came to Brown’s Hotel on his honeymoon, but kept returning to write novels, including his most beloved, 1892’s The Jungle Book. There’s a dedicated Kipling Suite, where a letter he penned and posted from the hotel in 1919 hangs on the wall. Agatha Christie was also a frequent guest and based her novel Bertram’s Hotel on Brown’s.
VIEW HOTELThe final chapter in the Harry Potter series was written here with the author leaving her mark on a marble bust in black ink to prove it: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007.” The Balmoral didn’t punish Rowling for defacing property, rather, given her fame, preserved the bust. They also renamed the suite in her honor and made a few magical improvements.
VIEW HOTELGraham Greene called the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel Hanoi home while working on his 1955 novel The Quiet American. In homage to the English writer, there’s a namesake suite dressed in French-Indochinese décor on the second floor, and at Le Club Bar you can order the same gin, cassis and dry vermouth cocktail he favored.
VIEW HOTELErnest Hemingway is on The Westin Palace Madrid’s long register of famous fans. The American writer loved its basement jazz club and brewery, and worked the hotel into one of his books. Near the end of The Sun Also Rises, characters Jake and Brett drink dry martinis at the hotel’s bar, with Jake saying, “It’s funny what a wonderful gentility you get in the bar of a big hotel.”
VIEW HOTELIconic in innumerable ways, The Plaza Hotel is loaded with literary cred. Author of the Eloise children’s books, Kay Thompson, lived at The Plaza, and so there’s a Betsey Johnson-designed pink suite inspired by the character. F. Scott Fitzgerald frequented the hotel too, and has his own suite dreamt up by Catherine Martin, co-producer and set designer of 2013’s The Great Gatsby film adaptation. To celebrate the success of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote held his very-exclusive Black and White Ball here too.
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