In 1969, Bengal Lounge was a bad dream

Why is it that so many times the word “renovation” is manipulated by those who use it into “a complete change”?

From there the users go on to gleefully wipe out the old (no matter how basically good) and replace it with something as different as it’s possible to produce.

When this happens the new image usually conforms to a pattern that has become the “in” thing during the last decade. A pattern that has little imagination and, in many cases, is merely a carbon copy wearing so very thin it’s difficult to accept or understand.

I have in mind the most recent renovation in the Empress Hotel. The bit that changed the Coronet Room from a place it was a pleasure to take visitors into a dimly lighted pseudo-image of a Middle East meeting place and christened now the Bengal Tiger Bar.

Isn’t that something? The Bengal Tiger Bar!

••• To make sure people remember the new name, a tiger skin has been splashed above the fireplace at the far end of the room and walls along the walkway into the bar have been decorated with poorly executed pictures of growling tigers.

Even the waiters have been caught up in the act. They now wear (a bit self-consciously) small, hard-to-control turbans in bright cerise tones.

The big windows have been concealed with strips of psychedelic coloured materials.

Same goes for the lovely metal screens that partly divide the room. Canopies of cerise red nylon silk now flutter overhead (for what reason it’s hard to decide).

Light fixtures have been shaded to match the cerise red decor. And, conforming to the “in” thing in modern cocktail lounges, these lights are so low (especially at night) it will be almost impossible to recognize the person sitting beside you.

Almost the only thing that hasn’t been given the “once over” is the ladies’ washroom. Let me tell you, I’ve never seen it in such a filthy condition.

In the many stages of “Operation Teacup” launched a while back with the avowed intention of shining up and modernizing the Empress Hotel, many worthwhile projects have been completed.

These were planned and organized to enhance, rather than detract; to increase visitor comforts and to modernize kitchens, public rooms and obsolete installations.

Over and over again, in the course of the changes, Alan Tremain, expert in charge of the operation, said to friends and to the press that “in our decorative scheme we will bring back much of the past,” combined with necessary modern innovations.

This pledge has been more or less fulfilled. Except in the glaring instance of the Coronet Room.

No one will make me believe that it was necessary to take this delightful corner of the hotel (already elegant in its own way), tear it to pieces and put it together again in its present image.

There may have been need for renovation. Perhaps some modernization. But why … why … why … the new name? Why the phoney decor?

The word “Coronet” went so well with the name “Empress.” The old decor with its royal blue and red colours and its gilded coronets (crowns) fitted perfectly into the image visitors and tourists loved to store away in their memories of the hotel.

Why on earth was it necessary then to remove the coronets (one over the entrance door has been missed and now looks strangely out of place), to change the rich reds and blues to substitute a name that means nothing to Victoria and adds nothing to the image of the Empress Hotel?

••• Now I cannot help wondering if, in the future, we will still know the place as the “Empress.”

If the mind that dreamed up the “Bengal Tiger Bar” is also toying with the idea of renaming the hotel itself? The “Rajah” perhaps? Uggh! I must be having a dream!