Taj Connemara, Chennai is a
five-star 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 re ...
in
Chennai
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It is a
heritage
Heritage may refer to:
History and society
* A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today
** Cultural heritage is created by humans
** Natural heritage is not
* Heritage language
Biology
* Heredity, biological inheritance of physica ...
hotel in Chennai. Classified under the
Taj Group's business hotels section, the 127-year-old hotel is considered the oldest hotel in the city.
History
The property of Taj Connemara was originally a house bought by John Binny from The Nawab of Arcot in 1799.
The property was later bought by T. Somasundara Mudalyar
and built as the Imperial Hotel in 1854 under the proprietorship of Triplicane Rathinavelu Mudaliar, renamed Albany in 1886 when it was leased to two other Mudaliar brothers, and re-established as The Connemara in 1890, named after the then Madras Governor during 1881–1886,
Robert Bourke, baron of
Connemara
Connemara (; )( ga, Conamara ) is a region on the Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...
, a rural area in Counties
Galway
Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a city in the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay, and is the sixth most populous city on ...
and
Mayo Mayo often refers to:
* Mayonnaise, often shortened to "mayo"
* Mayo Clinic, a medical center in Rochester, Minnesota, United States
Mayo may also refer to:
Places
Antarctica
* Mayo Peak, Marie Byrd Land
Australia
* Division of Mayo, an Aust ...
in the West of
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, later becoming a Spencer's hotel. In 1891, Eugene Oakshott, owner of Spencer's, then a little shop near Anna Circle, bought the hotel and its nine acres to build a showroom. Oakshott wanted to give Spencer's a facelift, so he decided to build one of Asia's biggest departmental store. In the 1930s, James Stiven, director of Spencer's, modernised the hotel starting in 1934, and the modernisation was completed in 1937.
It sported 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 ...
look when it was reopened in 1937.
According to a hotel press release, the 1937 renovation, estimated at 575,000, boasted about its "cool refreshing air delivered through the newest air conditioning apparatus."
According to the first published tariff of the hotel, the cost of a room on single occupancy was 10 with breakfast and that of a room with all meals was 17.80.
Spencer's leased the Connemara to the
Taj Group in 1974. The tower block and linking pool was designed by architect
Geoffrey Bawa
Deshamanya Geoffrey Manning Bawa, FRIBA (23 July 1919 – 27 May 2003) was a Sri Lankan architect. He was among the most influential Asian architects of his generation.
Early life
Geoffrey Bawa was born in Colombo on 23 July 1919, the young ...
in 1974, and the work was completed in 1977.
The deluxe wing of the hotel was destroyed almost completely in the "Friday the Thirteenth" fire in February 1981, which broke out in the Spencer's building. However, the main building of the hotel remained unharmed because of the high-rise wall in between the two buildings.
In 1984, the Taj Group of Hotels acquired the hotel for a 100-year lease from the Spencer's Group.
The hotel saw two renovations in 1990 and 1995.
The hotel was again renovated in 2004 and 2005, when the hotel was re-designed with the launch of the loud Distil bar and chic pan Asian restaurant Hip Asia,
It is also when 65 rooms in the hotel were renovated.
In 2008, historian S. Muthiah wrote a book on the heritage of the hotel, ''A Tradition of Madras that is Chennai—The Taj Connemara'',
which reproduces an advertisement from 1880 that states the hotel, called The Imperial Hotel then, promises "extensive premises… cool and fitted with every convenience" and wines from the "celebrated house of Messrs. McDowell & Co."
The book gives a rare collection of photographs of old Madras roads, buildings, interiors of the hotels and the hotel's tariff since 1939.
According to Muthiah, the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
rated Connemara as one of the best hotels in the world. Although the building was purportedly 200 years old by the turn of the twenty-first century, dating back to the original garden house bought by John Binny, according to Muthiah nothing of the old structure remains. The oldest part of the hotel is that built in the 1880s and 1890s.
In September 2010, the hotel was rebranded and renamed as
Vivanta by Taj—Connemara, Chennai.
The hotel closed on 1 November 2016
for a major makeover to re-create the theme of its early past and reopen as an intimate high-end luxury hotel. Aiming at recreating old menus and cuisines, the renovation would retain only the Verandah and Raintree restaurants, refurbishing all the rooms, lobby and banquet halls to look more like the hotels early years. The renovation would be made by the Mumbai-based engineering consultancy Structwel Designers and Consultants Private Limited.
Then, London-based designer Susan Freeman, a specialist in historical renovation was hired to work on the rooms and the restaurants.
The hotel reopened on 20 October 2018 as the Taj Connemara. The renovation took 22 months, cost 900 million Rupees, and involved 1400 workers.
The renovation preserved the architectural influences of Classic Colonial, Art Deco and distinctive elements from architect Geoffrey Bawa's "Tropical Modernism" style.
The Art Deco façade and interiors are the hotel's original features, including wooden carvings sourced from the 16th and 17th century temples of Mahabalipuram.
Given its centuries-old background, the hotel boasts some historical snippets:
*The stone pillars in the hotel's Raintree pathway and the wooden carvings in the grand staircase wall, both of which date back to the 16th and 17th centuries, are from old temples of
Mahabalipuram
Mamallapuram, also known as Mahabalipuram, is a town in Chengalpattu district in the southeastern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, best known for the UNESCO World Heritage Site of 7th- and 8th-century Hindu Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram. It is o ...
.
*The lobby has a
grand piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
that dates back to 1922, which used to be played in the ballroom in the evenings during the post-war era, and is still played on weekdays.
*Nagavelli well, located in the hotel, never dries up even during the peak of summer when all other wells in the city dry up.
*The Lady Connemara Bar & Lounge is the city's first licensed bar.
Location
Taj Connemara is located on the eastern banks of
River Cooum on Binny Road, off
Anna Salai
Anna Salai (), formerly known as St. Thomas Mount Road or simply Mount Road, is an arterial road in Chennai, India. It starts at the Cooum Creek, south of Fort St George, leading in a south-westerly direction towards St. Thomas Mount, and e ...
, abutting the
Spencer Plaza
Spencer Plaza (Tamil language, Tamil: ஸ்பென்சர் பிளாசா) is a shopping mall located on Anna Salai in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, and is one of the modern landmarks of the city. Originally built during the period ...
, one of the most prominent landmarks of Chennai.
The hotel
Built on a 4.2-acre land,
Taj Connemara has a total of 147 rooms, which include 143 double rooms and 4 suites. The hotel has 2 meeting rooms which include a ball room that can accommodate up to 400 people in a theatre style and up to 600 people for cocktails. The conference room of the hotel can accommodate up to 30 people in a theatre style. The restaurants in the hotel include The Verandah—a 24-hour coffee shop serving Indian, Continental and Thai food, The Lady Connemara Bar and Lounge—serving exotic cocktails, spirits, wines, beer and light snacks in a colonial ambiance, Raintree—an ethnic, open-air restaurant serving Chettinad cuisine from Tamil Nadu.
Greeneries in the hotel include a dramatic old
raintree Rain tree is a common name for several plants and may refer to:
*''Albizia saman'', a tree in the family Fabaceae, native to a range extending from Mexico south to Peru and Brazil
*'' Brunfelsia'' a genus of shrubs and small trees in the family Sol ...
and two sturdy Nagavalli trees.
Notable associations
For decades, the hotel has been integral to the functioning of several clubs and associations in the city. The Rotary Club of Madras has been meeting in the hotel every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. since 10 May 1929, and plaque has been erected past the ballroom to mark this. The Wednesday Club has been gathering in the hotel since 1975, taking "the same table at Verandah every week, and always have the lunch buffet." The Madras Book Club has been meeting in the hotel since the 2000s.
See also
*
Hotels in Chennai
The article below lists top hotels in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Background
Chennai is the third most visited city in India by foreigners, after New Delhi and Mumbai. In 2013, Chennai attracted 3,581,200 foreign tourists. The city was visited by ...
*
Hotel d'Angeli's
Hotel d'Angelis was a luxury hotel and restaurant established in 1906 by Giacomo D'Angelis at Mount Road, Madras, India. The hotel is considered to have spearheaded the introduction of modern technology in India.
History
Giacomo D'Angelis, ...
*
Heritage structures in Chennai
Chennai, with historically rich records dating at least from the time of the Pallavas, houses 2,467 heritage buildings within its metropolitan area ( CMA), the highest within any Metropolitan Area limit in India. Most of these buildings are aro ...
References
External links
*
{{Chennai Topics
Hotels in Chennai
Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces
Heritage hotels in India
Hotels established in 1854
1854 establishments in India