The Dorchester During WW II
The Dorchester in Park Lane, London
By Megan McKinney
War is one of many experiences we would not wish to endure in reality; however, having spent many peaceful, delightful weeks and weekends at The Dorchester through the years, and reading here and there about the hotel’s underground gymnasium and Turkish baths, which had been converted into a massive shelter during WW II ( the hotel’s extensive basement is one-third of the size of the hotel above the surface), it becomes an entertaining fantasy.
During World War II, the strength of its construction gave The Dorchester the reputation of being one of London’s safest buildings. It was said to be “bomb-proof, earthquake-proof and fireproof,” and the only damage inflicted on the structure by the Luftwaffe during the conflict was several broken windows.
The Promenade on The Dorchester’s ground floor is the place to be for 5:00 tea.
The aura of relative safety attracted a group of World War residents who could afford to live anywhere and who also made extraordinarily fascinating copy; therefore, they have become central figures or have at least been sprinkled through many books about the period. Foreign Minister Lord Halifax and his wife took eight rooms as well as a chapel in the hotel and were among these residents. Also residing at The Dorchester during this period was Alexandra “Baba” Metcalfe—one of the Curzon sisters. Were Lord Halifax and Lady Alexandra continuing their affair at this time? wonders Anne de Courcy in her book The Viceroy’s Daughters, for example. Soon the reader is pondering the same question.
Lady Alexandra “Baba” Metcalfe
Another Dorchester resident was a woman then known as Pamela Churchill, who was possibly the most flagrantly outrageous courtesan of the mid twentieth century. Eventually she became Mrs. Averell Harriman and was President Clinton’s Ambassador to France, so she was consistently an interesting figure about whom to read.
Among other Dorchester residents of the time were Minister of War Oliver Stanley, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Duff Cooper, with his wife Lady Diana, President of the Board of Trade Oliver Lyttleton, and Financial Secretary to the War Office Duncan Sandys.
alchetron.com
Lady Diana Cooper
General Dwight D. Eisenhower took a suite on the first floor (now the Eisenhower Suite) in 1942 after having previously stayed at Claridge’s, and in 1944 he made it his headquarters. Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s chauffeur, also stayed at The Dorchester, thanks to its reputation as a safe haven. Kay, by the way, and this writer were employed by CBS Television in New York at the same time during a much later period. Although she was closer to my parents’ generation than to mine, we became close friends, living around the corner from each other in both New York and London. And I do not believe she and Ike had a wartime romance, a widespread rumour throughout America during the 1940s
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Kay Summersby, General Eisenhower’s chauffeur in World War II
During a dinner party, which Mr. Harriman attended in The Dorchester, the bombing was so intense that guests traveled down to join him in the basement because it was safer than in the upper-floor rooms. In March 1945, Ernest Hemingway and Time magazine correspondent Mary Welsh, who would be a future Hemingway wife, stayed at The Dorchester, where they were entertained by Emerald, Lady Cunard, who kept a three-room suite on the seventh floor.
Author photo: Robert F. Carl