The site of the hotel was formerly occupied by a three-story building, dating to the late 18th Century, which became the property of the Lvov princely family in the 1870s. Prince Alexander Lvov, an early proponent for the advancement of modern fire fighting in Russia, made the building the headquarters of the United Russian Fire-fighting Society, as well as the newspaper "Pozharnoye delo" (Fire-fighting), of which he was the editor. The ground floor contained various shops. After the turn of the 20th Century, the building began offering rooms to rent. In 1902, the structure was purchased by the Rossiya Insurance Company, which demolished it in 1907 to allow for construction of a modern hotel. In 1910, the land was sold to the UK-based Palace Hotel Company, but they sold it a year later to the German construction company Wayss & Freytag, which built the hotel from 1911-1912 and owned and operated the business.[1]
Early years
The Hotel Astoria opened on December 23, 1912.[2] It was designed by Russian-Swedish architect Fyodor Lidval, who developed a style based on Art Nouveau and also influenced by Neoclassical architecture.[3] The Astoria was built to host tourists visiting Russia for the Romanov tercentenary, a huge celebration of 300 years of Russian imperial rule in May 1913. The luxurious hotel was used during the celebrations to house guests of the imperial family, and was afterwards popular with the aristocracy.[3]Rasputin was said to stay there with some of his married lovers.[2] The Astoria soon proved such a success that the neighboring Angleterre Hotel was set for demolition, for a huge expansion of the Astoria designed by Lidval, mirroring the existing building. However, the outbreak of World War I prevented this.[4]
When the Imperial German Embassy across the square was stormed by an anti-German mob on August 1, 1914, some of the embassy employees are reported to have fled to the Hotel Astoria via a secret underground connecting tunnel, constructed by the hotel's German owners.[1] Wayss & Freytag placed the property nominally under the ownership of its French manager, Louis Terrier, but it was soon established that the hotel was, in fact, owned by a company in a combatant country. The hotel was sequestered from its foreign ownership in 1915 and fully nationalized by the Russian government in 1916. It was converted to the Petrograd Military Hotel,[1] Petrograd being the new name given to the city itself, so it would sound less German. The hotel was searched on September 10, 1917 during the Kornilov affair, an attempted military coup, and about forty people in the hotel were arrested.
The Astoria was handed over to Intourist, the state-run tourism monopoly, in 1926, and converted back to a luxury hotel hosting mainly foreign visitors. During World War II, the hotel served as a field hospital during the Siege of Leningrad.[2] There is a legend that Adolf Hitler reportedly planned to hold a victory banquet in the hotel's Winter Garden. He was so convinced Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) would fall quickly that invitations to the event were printed in advance.[6]
The Astoria was managed by Intourist until it closed in 1987, for renovations. It reopened in 1989, completely restored by a Finnish construction company.
Modern era
Rocco Forte Hotels acquired the hotel[7] in December 1997[8] and spent $20 million on further renovations.[3] The hotel was renovated again in 2012, for its centennial.[2] Rocco Forte Hotels also owns and operates the adjacent Angleterre Hotel, and the upper guest room floors of the two hotels are connected.[9]
