Grand Pacific Hotel

For twenty years the grandest building in Suva had trees growing through its roof. The Grand Pacific Hotel, on Victoria Parade facing the harbour, closed in 1992 and sat empty while governments and investors argued over what to do with it; schoolchildren were told it was haunted. In May 2014, one hundred years after it first opened, it took guests again, restored room by room, with a new wing behind the old one and the harbour still in front.

History

The Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand built the hotel in 1914 for passengers on its Pacific routes, who wanted a night ashore without giving up the standards of the ship. The design copied the liners: rooms opened onto a wide verandah like a promenade deck, the saloon had the proportions of a first-class dining room, and the staff were drilled in shipboard service. Through the colonial decades it was the social centre of Fiji, the place for the governor's receptions and for the visiting famous: the hotel's guest list includes Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham and James Michener, who wrote Pacific stories from a table on the verandah. Queen Elizabeth II stayed in December 1953 on her first Commonwealth tour and spoke to the crowd from the balcony; she came back in 1982. After closure in 1992 the building decayed until a consortium of the Fiji National Provident Fund, Papua New Guinea's Nasfund and the Lamana Group took it on. The restoration opened in May 2014 under InterContinental Hotels Group management.

Architecture and design

The 1914 building is a white two-storey block in the Edwardian colonial style with a colonnaded ground floor, a continuous first-floor verandah, tall sash windows and a central pediment facing the sea. The restoration kept the façade, the entrance hall and the staircase, and reinstated the verandah rooms. A new five-storey wing was built at the rear to house most of the bedrooms and the function rooms, leaving the heritage block to the suites and the public rooms.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has around 113 rooms and suites. The heritage rooms and suites in the 1914 building open onto the verandah and look across Victoria Parade to the harbour; the rooms in the new wing face the gardens and the pool. The Royal Suite is named for the 1953 visit.

Dining

The facts file counts six restaurants and bars. The main dining room occupies the old saloon, with a verandah terrace for breakfast and lunch over the harbour. There is a Pacific-themed grill by the pool and a lobby bar in the heritage building where the afternoon tea is served. Names are not confirmed here.

Wellness

A day spa in the new wing offers treatments with Fijian oils; there is an outdoor swimming pool in the garden between the wings and a fitness centre.

Weddings and events

Suva's state occasions returned to the hotel with the reopening. The ballroom in the new wing is the city's largest hotel function room and is used for government dinners, conferences and wedding receptions, while the heritage verandah and the lawn facing the harbour host ceremonies and cocktail receptions. The hotel hosts both weddings and meetings; the facts file records no capacities.

Location

Victoria Parade is Suva's principal street. Albert Park, where Charles Kingsford Smith landed the Southern Cross in 1928, is beside the hotel, and the Thurston Gardens and the Fiji Museum are behind it. Government House and the Parliament are within walking distance. Nausori Airport, serving Suva, is around 30 minutes by car; Nadi International Airport, where most international flights arrive, is three to four hours by road or a short domestic flight. It is the only luxury hotel in Suva with a history to match the capital's, and the only one on the harbour front.