Metropole Hotel, Ice House Street [1925-????]

Submitted by David on Mon, 10/09/2017 - 15:21
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed

22 Ice House Street

Timeline:

  • 1925: Building opens, home to the Metropole Hotel

    • The Metropole Hotel opens on 24th August, 1925. It's a new, six-storey building on the site of the old Carlton Hotel Annexe. They plan to expand by acquiring two floors in Ruttonjee's Building next door. Source: Page 1, The Hong Kong Telegraph, 1925-08-24
Previous place(s) at this location
(Grand) Carlton Hotel - IL 644 [1908-1922]
Later place(s) at this location
Baskerville House, 22 Ice House Street [1976- ]

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We Redwoods lodged in the Metropole Hotel, Ice House Street when we landed in HK in Feb. 1938 until the Dockyard flat No.4 was ready for us. My two sisters and I shared an enormous room, my parents had another.  Our suitcases were all around us. 

The only thing I liked about the Metropole was it was only a stone's throw from the Kings and the Queen's theatres!

Barbara

I had come across a photo of the Metropole Hotel from 1940/1941 in the Forman archive. See here By 1937, the Metropole Hotel had begun operations in new premises in the Wang Hing Building, 10 Queen's Road Central. The 'new' Metropole was also famous for its Russian cuisine and tea dances. The following information is provided.

China Mail 26 September 1930

"Goods and chattels of A. & P. Leong Hing-kee in the Metropole Hotel at 22 Ice House Street were sold at public auction. Goods and chattels of the Metropole Hotel Annexe at 7 Duddell Street also attracted keen bidding and were finally sold to J. Ruttonjee, owner of the property.

It was rumored that the hotels may continue under different management."

Notice of Bankruptcy - 16 October 1932 in HKGRO

A. & P. Leong Hing-kee & Co. was adjudicated bankrupt.

Licensing Sessions - 16 July 1937 in HKGRO

The Metropole Hotel situated at 10 Queen's Road Central on the 5th, 6th and 7th floors (Wang Hing Building) was granted a liquor licence. The license holder was Peter Leong Hing-kee.

Thanks for the extra info about the Metropole Hotel, and its move to Queen's Road. That makes four different locations that we have on Gwulo that have used the Metropole Hotel name!

After seeing the 1937 mention of the Metropole at QRC, I asked Barbara if her family might have stayed in the Queen's Road building, but she's sure it was the one on Ice House Street. So it looks as though the hotel was re-opened with new owners after the 1932 bankruptcy, and that it spanned the old Ice House Street and new Queen's Road Central sites for a while. Here's Barbara's reply:

I will quote from an account, which I wrote up many years later, of our arrival in Hong Kong in Feb 1938:-

'By the time we arrived in HK, I think we had forgotten about the worries which had sprung to mind before our trip - shortly before Christmas 1937 the Japs had shot up the US gunboat 'Panay'.  There was certainly no sign of panic in Hong Kong. My first impression was that it didn't look as exciting a place now as it had to me as a child, I was now 19.

Some Dockyard colleagues of Dad's met us and took us to the Metropole Hotel where we would stay initially, as the Dockyard flat we were to occupy was being redecorated.   The Metropole was in Ice House Street, facing the grounds of the area where the Colonial Secretary's office and other government buildings stood.'

The photos you show of the entrance of the Metropole are surely of the later version of it in Wang Hing building.

Anyway, I can assure you that we stayed in the Metropole in Ice House Street!