Raffles Hotel Singapore, Marina - City Centre

Renowned as a Renaissance man of the 20th century, André Malraux is one of the best known French novelists who was also at one time a war hero and French government minister. Born on 3 November 1901, Malraux was winner of the prestigious "Prix Goncourt". In two of his books, "Les conquérants" (1928) and "Les antimémoires" (1967), Malraux described Raffles Hotel where he stayed on many occasions during his travels to the Far East. Malraux died in Paris on 23 November 1976.

A collection of books, some authored by Malraux himself and others biographies telling his adventures, is acquired specially for residents’ reading pleasure. 

Once upon a time she was thought to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Ava Gardner led an exciting life on and off screen and gained immense popularity as an enchanting actress.

Ava Gardner was in Singapore for the Asian premiere of her film, `The Barefoot Contessa', when she stayed at Raffles Hotel in the mid-1950s.

The suite is furnished with an old-fashioned brass bed with lace curtains and a photograph of the very glamourous Miss Gardner arriving at the Hotel. Books written on her life and movie ‘The Barefoot Contessa' are available for residents to get a glimpse of her life and journey to fame. 

Charlie Chaplin was a legend in his lifetime. His movie career spanned decades, beginning in the heyday of silent movies and lasting until the 1950s. His enduring character, `The Little Tramp', has been rediscovered by successive generations and has continued to charm new audiences around the world with his endearing humour and pathos.

Chaplin visited Singapore and Raffles Hotel in 1933 where he was photographed in the Tiffin Room with his brother by S Nakajima, a Japanese photographer whose studio was, for many years, in the Hotel's Bras Basah Wing. A copy of this photograph was returned to the Hotel and now takes pride of place in the suite. Residents of this suite will be able to experience his comedy again through a selection of movies and biographies. 

Born in Wales in 1928, Gavin Young was a highly acclaimed and respected author who summoned up more than twenty years of travel and adventure in some of the world’s most remote and exciting places. He studied modern history at Oxford University and in 1950, joined the Welsh Guards military service based in Palestine. He stayed on in the Middle East, working in Basra, Iraq, later in Southern Iraq, still later, amongst the locals in the Southern Arabian Peninsula.

Young joined the Observer as a foreign correspondent in 1960 and for the next 20 years, covered 15 wars and revolutions throughout the world. His writings were superbly crafted accounts of not just places he had visited but also the people he had encountered, making one learn more about the world through his stories. His around-the-world travels by sea provided the basis for his later best-selling classics including Slow Boats to China (1980), In Search of Conrad and From Sea to Shining Sea (1995).

Young was a winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 1991 as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He passed away in London in 2001 at the age of 72. Young resided at Raffles Hotel on his numerous visits to Singapore, the last being in November 1998.

James A. Michener, a Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist who wrote nearly 50 books in his lifetime, had a life-long love of travel and Raffles Hotel. He began his love affair with the Hotel, in 1949 after serving in the South Pacific with the US Navy.

He was later to reminisce in his eighties, “To have been young and had a room at Raffles was life at its best”.

A special feature of the James Michener suite is a collection of his literary works for residents’ reading pleasure, a specially selected antique sixty-year old colonial-style three-piece pedestrial teak desk with a leather top and matching chair which is similar to the desk on which he would have written his Pulitzer-prize winning novel, “Tales of the South Pacific” in the 1940s; as well as two portraits of him, one featuring him at the Hotel, the other in Singapore’s Chinatown.

John Thomson is one of the giants of early photography. Born in Edinburgh in 1837, Thomson took up photography as a profession in his early 20s. For one year from 1862, he travelled and explored the Far East recording with his camera, scenes of life now long vanished. The series of photographs resulted in Thomson being regarded as one of the first of the great "photo-journalists".

Yet Thomson's photographs are equally valued for their intrinsic qualities - the beauty of their imagery, their vivid sense of immediacy and interesting composition.

Thomson arrived in Singapore in 1862 on board the P & O steamer "Emeu" and set up his "Photographic Room" at 3 Beach Road, where the Palm Court wing now stands.

He left in 1865 and travelled further East to China and returned to England in 1872 where 14 years later, he was appointed photography instructor to the Royal Geographic Society. For his technical and artistic skill, and his enormous contribution to early photography, Raffles Hotel pays tribute to him in the John Thomson Suite.

To millions of filmgoers, John Wayne was heroism personified, and he remains one of the great film stars of all time. Wayne’s career spanned six decades. He was featured in some 160 films, many of which rank with the best ever shown. He was the top box-office draw in 1950, 1951, 1954 and 1971, and stayed among the top ten box-office stars from 1949 to 1973, with the exception of 1958.

Wayne made his last public appearance in April 1979 at the Oscar ceremony and two months later, he lost his battle with cancer. While the final chapter may have closed on a great actor, the unique legacy of the man and what he represented to so many for so long remains very much alive today.

Memorabilia displayed in the John Wayne suite include a movie DVD ‘True Grit’ for which he won an Oscar in 1969, old movie posters and numerous books including one authored by his daughter, Aissa Wayne. 

Joseph Conrad's association with Raffles goes back to the Hotel's earliest days.

As a young seaman, Conrad visited Singapore several times and was on his last visit in late 1887 when Raffles Hotel opened its doors for business. Although Conrad stayed at the Seamen's mission a few blocks away from the Sarkies brothers' new Hotel, it is said that he walked the shaded avenues between the two establishments to have a look at Singapore's latest hostelry. In his novel, `End of the Tether', Conrad describes a hostelry that is "as airy as a birdcage". This is often thought to be a description of Raffles. Among the memorabilia on display in the Joseph Conrad suite is an original Conrad autograph.

Great British playwright, novelist and actor, Noel Coward's first visit to Raffles was in 1931 and his last, almost 40 years later, in 1968.

On his first visit, he was travelling with Jeffrey Holmesdale, Lord Amherst, and en route finished `Private Lives'. When the two men arrived in Singapore, Lord Amherst was taken seriously ill and had to be hospitalised.

Coward stayed at Raffles for a month. He recalled in his autobiography, `Present Indicative' his first night at the Hotel, sitting on the verandah and sipping a Gin Sling. "There was a thunderstorm brewing and the airless heat pressed down on my head. I felt as though I was inside a hot cardboard box which was growing rapidly smaller and smaller, until soon I should have to give up all hope of breathing and die of suffocation...Presently, the thunderstorm broke and raged violently for about an hour. It was a most through going storm I had ever seen".

Officially dedicated by Chile's President, His Excellency, Mr Eduardo Frei, the commemoration of the Pablo Neruda Suite at Raffles pays tribute to the life and works of Pablo Neruda, one of Chile's most influential contemporary poets and 1971 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.

The Pablo Neruda Suite features many mementoes of his life and works. Among these are photographs of the great poet and his best-known writings, including The Heights of Macchu Picchu, The Book of Questions and The Separate Rose. A highlight of the decor is a rare wood-block print of his poem "Ode to The Wood".

Born in 1904, Mr Neruda began writing poetry at the age of 10 and was already a famous name by the time he was 20. His most widely-read book, Viente poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and Song of Despair) is still popular today.

Neruda was named Consul of Chile in Singapore in 1931. During his 5-year term in Asia, Neruda also represented his country in Rangoon, Ceylon, Batavia and Java. His first visit to Singapore from Colombo marked his first visit to Raffles Hotel, a welcome retreat from a long journey. Recalling fond memories, he penned, "We headed directly for Raffles Hotel. There I sent my clothes, not a small load, to the laundry, and then sat on the verandah. Lazily, I stretched in an easychair and ordered one, two and even three ginpahit."

Rudyard Kipling visited Singapore on a round the world trip in 1889, just a year and a half after Raffles Hotel opens its doors to the world.

In the account of his journey entitled `From Sea to Sea' published in 1899, Kipling wrote, "Raffles Hotel...where the food is as excellent as the rooms are bad. Let the traveller take note : Feed at Raffles and sleep at the Hotel de L'Europe".

The "Feed at Raffles" was often quoted by the Sarkies brothers in the Hotel's advertisements.

Of all the English writers of his day, Kipling had the widest geographical range. He visited every continent, traversed almost every sea and wrote stories, verses, essays about almost every place he visited.

For this and his memorable words about Raffles Hotel, we pay him tribute in the Rudyard Kipling Suite. And certainly if Kipling were alive today, he would tell travellers to take note : Feed and sleep at Raffles.  Among the memorabilia displayed in the suite is an original Kipling autograph.

Somerset Maugham made many trips to the Far East, often stopping off for a few days at Raffles Hotel. His first visit took place in 1921 when he was already an established novelist and dramatist. From this visit and other visits in the 1920s and early 1930s, he produced two collections of his short stories - `The Casuarina Tree' and `Ah King'.

Maugham's last and very nostalgic visit to Raffles in 1960 was some 40 years after his first. Maugham was 84 years old and he stayed in Suite 77, now Suite 102, the Somerset Maugham Suite.

Memorabilia displayed in the Somerset Maugham Suite include photographs of Maugham during his last visit and two letters written to the Hotel's then General Manager, Frantz Schutzman. One of the letters gives the Hotel permission to use his famous quotation that Raffles Hotel "stands for all the fables of the Exotic East".