Manchu dynasty imperial commissioner, Ch'i-ying.
The foreign community's regard for Ch'i-ying as their patron made him a temporary vogue. A few months later the spacious and commodious premises" of a new British hotel on Queen's Road were christened "Keying House".
This original section of the Hotel was rebuilt several times, but the "Hongkong Hotel" was started, and remained, in this location for almost 85 years.
The original business plan of the Hongkong Hotel Company was to take over and refurbish the Oriental Hotel on Wellington Street.
Enter Baron Gustav von Overbeck, Consul for Prussia and Austria-Hungary - and listed as an "assistant" at Dent's & Co.
In photos of Hong Kong from the 1890s, this building is hard to miss - it towers over its neighbours on the seafront.
As Moddsey guessed, this was built where the Metropole Building stands today. The site was bigger then, stretching from King's Road (then the seafront) back to today's Ming Yuen mansions on Peacock Rd.
The notice of the sale gives the lot as IL 1705, which fortunately can still be found on map.gov.hk.
1872 - Wyndham St at Wellington Street
This replaced the 2nd Club Germania, which was further up Wyndham St on the corner above D'Aguilar St.
On page 5 of The China Mail, 1902-10-30, the building was advertised as available to rent, as the club prepared to move to its fourth site, on Kennedy Road:
This hotel opened as The President Hotel in 1963, but later was re-branded as a Hyatt hotel.
It was demolished in 2006, and re-built as the iSQUARE mall:
On Mody Road. (I originally thought it was on the corner with Nathan Road, but that was just a sign pointing to the hotel, which was a short distance along Mody Road.)
The book "Streets: Exploring Kowloon" says:
"... the new wing of the Miramar Hotel. It provides an extra 268 rooms, together with a magnificent theatre-restaurant and special banqueting rooms."
1967
"The Miramar Hotel at the corner of Nathan Rd and Kimberley Rd has an especially good reputation. It was also Hongkong's first postwar hotel, opened in 1948"
