Goodwood Park Hotel

On Scotts Road, a few hundred metres from Orchard Road, a turreted white building sits on a low hill behind lawns and rain trees. It was built in 1900 as the Teutonia Club, the social club of Singapore's German merchants, and its architect was R.A.J. Bidwell of Swan & Maclaren, the man who also drew the main building of Raffles Hotel. Goodwood Park Hotel has occupied it since 1929, and the 233 rooms added around the club house have not displaced it from the centre of the composition.

History

The Teutonia Club opened its new premises in September 1900. When Britain went to war with Germany in 1914 the club's members were interned and the building seized as enemy property. It passed through several hands, served as a concert hall under the name Goodwood Hall, and in 1929 opened as the Goodwood Park Hotel, named after the racecourse in Sussex. During the Japanese occupation from 1942 the hotel was taken over as quarters for senior officers; after the war it housed a British war crimes court before returning to hotel use in 1947. The Khoo family acquired it in the 1960s, and the late Khoo Teck Puat's daughter Mavis Oei has run it since. The tower block was gazetted a national monument of Singapore in 1989.

Architecture and design

Bidwell gave the club a round tower with a conical roof, inspired by castles of the Rhine, and a façade of arched windows, shaped gables and plasterwork that borrows from the Art Nouveau of the period. The tower is the part that is protected; the hotel wings behind it date from the twentieth century and are lower and plainer. The grounds matter as much as the buildings: the hotel keeps a large garden with mature trees, and the two swimming pools sit within it rather than on a roof. The public rooms are furnished in a traditional manner, with carpets, chandeliers and dark timber.

Rooms and suites

The 233 rooms and nine suites are divided between the main building and the garden wings. The suites in the tower block have the period proportions; the Mayfair rooms and the Poolside rooms in the wings open onto the gardens and the pools. Several suites carry the names of the hotel's history, including the Brunei suite built for the Sultan's visits.

Dining

Goodwood Park is unusual among Singapore hotels in being as well known for its food as for its rooms. The Gordon Grill has served steak and British dishes since the 1960s. Min Jiang, the Sichuan and Cantonese restaurant, opened in 1982 and has a sister, Min Jiang at Dempsey, in a former barracks across town. Coffee Lounge serves local dishes and the Deli sells the durian pastries, mooncakes and strawberry cakes that Singaporeans queue for in season. L'Espresso serves afternoon tea in the lobby with a view of the lawn.

Wellness

The hotel has two outdoor pools, one of them the Mayfair pool between the garden wings, a fitness room and spa treatment rooms. The garden setting is the real amenity: a large private lawn in the middle of the Orchard Road shopping district.

Weddings and events

The hotel has held Singapore weddings for decades, with the Tudor ballroom as the principal room for Chinese banquets and the Windsor ballroom alongside it, both on the ground floor with foyers for receptions. Smaller function rooms take meetings and private dinners, and the lawn is used for solemnisations. The hotel's wedding packages are a fixture of the Singapore market.

Location

Scotts Road runs north from Orchard Road, and the hotel sits on it between the Orchard and Newton MRT stations, each about ten minutes on foot. The Botanic Gardens are two kilometres west. Changi Airport is about 20 kilometres east, half an hour by car outside the rush hour. It is the only luxury hotel in Singapore whose main building is a gazetted national monument apart from Raffles and the Fullerton.