Grandhotel Zlatý Lev in Liberec celebrates 120 years since its opening this year — and in that time it's experienced enough to fill an entire book.
"We're old enough now that we've allowed ourselves to write a book about ourselves too," the hotel jokes — and they're right: the publication Fenomén Zlatý Lev (The Zlatý Lev Phenomenon) maps 120 years of history of a building that has hosted emperors, presidents, polar explorers, cosmonauts, and rock legends since its founding.
The hotel opened by a relative of the emperor himself
The hotel went into full operation in May 1906, when Archduke Ferdinand Karl came to Liberec to ceremonially open the Exhibition of German Bohemia — and returned a month later, this time accompanying his uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph I. Even then, the hotel was among the most modern Europe had to offer: a kitchen with an electric dishwasher, cold-storage boxes for meat, and carpets cleaned with a Vacuum Cleaner brand vacuum — luxuries in 1905 that only a few could afford.
120 years, one long guest list
From polar explorer Roald Amundsen to President Edvard Beneš to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, who stayed at the hotel in 1966. The hotel also went through darker periods — during World War II it unfortunately hosted a number of Nazi officials, including Rudolf Hess and Konrad Henlein, while in the brief postwar period of freedom it was visited by human rights activist Milada Horáková. During the socialist era, the hotel, then called Interhotel, became a regular stop for film and music stars in connection with the Liberec Trade Fairs — hosting the likes of Oldřich Nový, Vladimír Menšík, and singer Hana Zagorová.
After 1989, the list only grew longer — all four Czech presidents have stayed there, as did actor Tom Holland while filming Spider-Man, and bands like Deep Purple and Nazareth.
The kitchen kept pace with the world too: in the 1960s the hotel held weeks of Russian, Chinese, and Japanese cuisine at a time when the very idea of an Asian dinner was pure exoticism for Czechoslovaks, and in 1967 the hotel served specialties straight from the Expo world's fair in Montreal.
A book that turns it into a story
Behind the written history stands PhDr. Lubor Lacina, historian at the North Bohemian Museum, who worked on the book for almost a year, drawing mainly on the period newspaper Reichenberger Zeitung and surviving hotel guest books.
"As the amount of information we uncovered kept growing, it became clear to us that Grandhotel Zlatý Lev has such a great story that it was worth telling in full," Lacina describes the project's origins, which was originally meant to be just a set of information panels for the hotel lobby. He sums up the hotel's history in one sentence: "Grandhotel Zlatý Lev = Liberec."
The book Fenomén Zlatý Lev is being published to mark this year's anniversary and will be available for purchase directly at the hotel.
Celebrations continue all September
The hotel will celebrate the anniversary from mid-September to mid-October with period-themed menus, exhibition panels, and reminders on social media, where it is gradually revealing further chapters of a story that began being written 120 years ago.