Hotel Atlantic Kempinski

The rock singer Udo Lindenberg has lived in a suite at the Hotel Atlantic Kempinski since 1995, and the hotel's bar is where Hamburg expects to find him. A permanent resident of thirty years is unusual for a hotel, and it suits a house that was built for people with time to wait.

History

The Hamburg-America Line, HAPAG, the shipping company run by Albert Ballin, built the Atlantic to lodge its first-class passengers before they boarded the liners for New York. It opened on 2 May 1909 on the eastern shore of the Outer Alster, the lake in the middle of the city, and was conceived as the land-based equivalent of a first-class deck. The hotel came through the Second World War intact, which much of Hamburg did not, and has been managed by Kempinski since 1957.

The building is a listed heritage monument of the city of Hamburg. Its film credit is Tomorrow Never Dies, the 1997 James Bond film, in which Pierce Brosnan's Bond stays at the Atlantic and the hotel's facade, lobby and a room are shown on screen. Hamburg has named the hotel the Weisses Schloss an der Alster, the white castle on the Alster, for as long as anyone can remember.

Architecture and design

The facade is a long white classical front with a columned portico and a copper roof, built to be seen across the water from the Alster promenade. The lobby is on a grand scale, with a double staircase, marble and a ceiling that belongs to 1909. The Grosser Festsaal, the ballroom, keeps its original decoration. The rooms were renovated through the 2010s, and the facade and roof were restored. Everything about the hotel's plan still follows the shipping-company brief: broad corridors, high ceilings and lake views as the point of the building.

Rooms and suites

Around 220 rooms and suites look either over the Outer Alster or into the quieter streets of St Georg behind. Alster-facing rooms on the upper floors take in the whole lake with the spire of St Michaelis on the far side. The decoration is classical, with pale woods and fabrics in the Kempinski manner, and the top-floor suites have terraces.

Dining

The Atlantic Restaurant is the main dining room, with a menu built on North German produce and fish from the Elbe estuary and the North Sea, served in the room where the hotel's original restaurant was. The Atlantic Bar is the bar Lindenberg made famous, with a long cocktail list and late hours. In summer the terrace on the Alster side serves lunch and drinks facing the water.

Wellness

The spa on the top floor has an indoor pool, a sauna and steam area, a fitness room and treatment rooms, with the rooftop position giving views over the Alster. It is small by resort standards but the pool is a rarity among Hamburg's city-centre hotels.

Weddings and events

The Grosser Festsaal, with its period decoration, is the room for wedding dinners and balls, and the hotel has a series of smaller salons for meetings and private dinners. Weddings in Hamburg are civil ceremonies at the registry office, so the hotel hosts the reception and dinner, and the Alster terrace serves for the reception in summer. Congresses use the salons and the ballroom together.

Location

The address is An der Alster 72-79, in the St Georg district on the eastern shore of the Outer Alster. Hamburg central station is a ten-minute walk, which makes the hotel the closest luxury hotel in Hamburg to the main rail hub. Hamburg airport is about 25 minutes by taxi or 30 minutes by S-Bahn from the central station. The Jungfernstieg, the Rathaus and the shopping streets of the Neustadt are 15 minutes on foot around the lake, and the Alster promenade runs past the front door.