Eastern & Oriental Hotel

On Lebuh Farquhar, a lawn runs down to a sea wall and the Strait of Malacca, and behind it stands a white colonial building with a dome over its entrance. This is the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in George Town, Penang, opened in 1885 by the Armenian Sarkies brothers, Martin and Tigran, who went on to found Raffles Hotel in Singapore in 1887 and the Strand in Rangoon in 1901. The E&O, as everyone in Penang calls it, came first.

History

The brothers began with the Eastern Hotel in 1884 and added the Oriental next door the following year; the two were joined and the combined name stuck. Through the first decades of the twentieth century the hotel was the social centre of the Straits Settlements' northern port, with a ballroom, a sea-facing promenade and a guest book that reads like a reading list: Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Hermann Hesse, Noël Coward and Charlie Chaplin all stayed.

The Sarkies family lost the business in the 1930s and the hotel went through several owners and a long decline. It closed in 1996 for a full restoration and reopened in 2001 as an all-suite house, with the original building renamed the Heritage Wing. In 2013 a new building, the Victory Annexe, opened on the adjacent site, adding a second pool and a further set of suites. In 2008 the historic core of George Town was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, and the E&O sits at its northern edge.

Architecture and design

The Heritage Wing is British colonial in the Straits manner: a long white facade, deep verandahs, a central dome over a rotunda lobby, and ceiling fans turning under high plaster ceilings. Corridors are wide enough for two trunks to pass. The restoration kept the timber floors, the cast-iron work and the proportions of the public rooms; the seafront lawn and the long promenade along the sea wall were kept as they were. The Victory Annexe is a plainer, taller building that borrows the colour and the rhythm of the original without copying its ornament.

Rooms and suites

Every room is a suite. In the Heritage Wing the suites have separate sitting rooms, high ceilings and, on the sea side, windows onto the strait; a butler service covers the wing. The Victory Annexe suites are more contemporary, with larger bathrooms and balconies, and the best of them look straight across the water towards the mainland. The two wings share the lawn, the sea-facing pools and the spa, so guests pick between period rooms and newer ones rather than between standards.

Dining

Sarkies, the main restaurant, serves breakfast and buffet dinners in a room that opens onto the lawn. Farquhar's Bar keeps the panelled, English-club atmosphere of the old hotel, and the 1885 restaurant is where afternoon tea is served. Planters Lounge in the Victory Annexe is the quieter place for a drink at sunset, with the strait on one side and the lights of Butterworth on the other.

Wellness

The spa occupies rooms in the Victory Annexe and the hotel keeps two outdoor pools, both facing the sea. There is a fitness room, and the seafront promenade gives a flat early-morning walk before the heat arrives.

Weddings and events

The E&O hosts weddings on the seafront lawn, with the ceremony facing the water and dinner in the Grand Ballroom afterwards, and it has done so for generations of Penang families. The ballroom and a set of smaller function rooms take conferences, dinners and receptions; the lawn is the setting most couples ask for. As a luxury hotel in George Town with a working seafront, it is one of the few places on the island where a wedding can be held beside the water without leaving the city.

Location

Lebuh Farquhar runs along the northern seafront of George Town, between the old Protestant cemetery and the Esplanade. The ferry to Butterworth, Fort Cornwallis, the Penang State Museum and the shophouses of the heritage core are all within walking distance. Penang International Airport at Bayan Lepas is about 16 km to the south, roughly 35 minutes by car; the nearest railway station is Butterworth on the mainland, reached by ferry or by the Penang Bridge.