The Hotel Majapahit is a historic

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...

East Java East Java ( id, Jawa Timur) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located in the easternmost hemisphere of Java island. It has a land border only with the province of Central Java to the west; the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean bord ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, opened in 1911. The hotel is currently managed by

Accor Accor S.A. is a French multinational hospitality company that owns, manages and franchises hotels, resorts and vacation properties. It is the largest hospitality company in Europe, and the sixth largest hospitality company worldwide. Accor op ...

through its MGallery chain.

History

The hotel was founded in 1910 as the Hotel Oranje by Lucas Martin Sarkies, the son of Martin Sarkies of the

Sarkies brothers The Sarkies Brothers, Martin (1852–1912), Tigran (1861–1912), Aviet (1862–1923), and Arshak (1868–1931), were a group of brothers of Armenian ethnicity best known for founding a chain of luxury hotels throughout Southeast Asia. The brother ...

, who commissioned

Regent Alfred John Bidwell Regent Alfred John Bidwell, or R. A. J. Bidwell, was an English-born architect noted for his colonial era buildings in Singapore. His best-known works include the Raffles Hotel and the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall in Singapore, and Sultan A ...

to design the hotel. It opened in 1911. Two wings were added from 1923 to 1926 and an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

lobby extension was opened in 1930. The opening was celebrated with a royal party attended by Crown Prince Leopold III from Belgium, Princess Astrid from Sweden and

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...

. During the WWII

Japanese occupation of Indonesia The Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II from March 1942 until after the end of the war in September 1945. It was one of the most crucial and important periods in modern Indonesian history. In May ...

from 1942 to 1945, the hotel was renamed Hotel Yamato. It was used as the headquarters of the Japanese forces in East Java. The hotel was the site of the famous "Hotel Yamato Incident" on 19 September 1945 when pro-nationalist Indonesian youth revolutionaries tore away the blue portion of the

Dutch flag The national flag of the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlandse vlag) is a horizontal tricolour of red, white, and blue. The current design originates as a variant of the late 16th century orange-white-blue '' Prinsenvlag'' ("Prince's Flag"), evo ...

flown above the hotel to change it to the red-and-white

Indonesian flag The Flag of Indonesia is a simple bicolor with two horizontal bands, red (top) and white (bottom) with an overall ratio of 2:3. It was introduced and hoisted in public during the proclamation of independence on 17 August 1945 at 56 Proklamasi ...

in the lead-up to the

Battle of Surabaya The Battle of Surabaya was fought between regular infantry and militia of the Indonesian nationalist movement and British and British Indian troops as a part of the Indonesian National Revolution against the re-imposition of Dutch colonial r ...

. Following this incident, the hotel was renamed the Hotel Merdeka (Independence Hotel). In 1946 the Sarkies brothers returned to manage the hotel and renamed it the L. M. S. Hotel for Lucas Martin Sarkies. In 1969, Mantrust Holdings Co. bought the hotel and renamed it Hotel Majapahit, after the historic kingdom of

Majapahit Majapahit ( jv, ꦩꦗꦥꦲꦶꦠ꧀; ), also known as Wilwatikta ( jv, ꦮꦶꦭ꧀ꦮꦠꦶꦏ꧀ꦠ; ), was a Javanese people, Javanese Hinduism, Hindu-Buddhism, Buddhist thalassocracy, thalassocratic empire in Southeast Asia that was ba ...

. The hotel was restored in 1994 by Harry Susilo, a prominent local ethnic Chinese businessman, at a cost of $51 million. It reopened on 19 January 1996 as the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Majapahit Surabaya, managed by the

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group International Limited (MOHG) is a Hong Kong hotel investment and management group focusing on luxury hotels, resorts, and residences, with a total of 33 properties worldwide, 20 of which are fully or partially ow ...

. It was bought by the CCM Group in 2006 and renamed Hotel Majapahit. In 2014, Hotel Majapahit was officially recognized as a cultural heritage landmark by the

Ministry of Education and Culture The Ministry of Education and Culture is a Cabinet position in the governments of several nations. In some nations the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture are separate departments; in others, the Ministry of Education and Culture als ...

References

External links

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Hotel Majapahit The Hotel Majapahit is a historic hotel in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, opened in 1911. The hotel is currently managed by Accor through its MGallery chain. History The hotel was founded in 1910 as the Hotel Oranje by Lucas Martin Sarkies, ...

Hotels in Surabaya Hotels established in 1910 Hotel buildings completed in 1910 {{Indonesia-hotel-stub