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Foreword

On the last day of January 1991 a little snow fell on London and the temperature never got far above freezing. And that was the day on which I turned the key to open the doors of one of the world’s finest hotels – The Lanesborough on Hyde Park Corner.

This grand and opulent hotel was created and crafted from what had for over 250 years been one of London’s best-known landmarks – St George’s Hospital. Where once there had been the pervading smell of disinfectant, hard-wearing but functional linoleum floors, faded paintwork and the hustle and bustle of nurses, doctors, patients and visitors, now there was peace, sophistication, refinement, marble, dark hardwoods and elegant fabrics.

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It was a truly astonishing transformation; one that had taken many years to bring to fruition. But in a very real sense, it had actually taken four generations of some of the world’s most distinguished hoteliers to get to this point. Because I hadn’t literally turned a key to open those doors that frosty morning: there were bowler-hatted doormen to do that. But metaphorically I had turned a key – one that had been passed from my great-grandfather Giuseppe to his son Giulio and from him to my father Bertie and from Bertie to me, Geoffrey Gelardi.

That key was the generations of knowledge, vision, understanding and instinct that are needed to be a hotelier at the very pinnacle of the luxury market: vital attributes that I had gleaned and learned from the experiences of previous generations of Gelardis.

This is the story of a remarkable dynasty, one that has not just witnessed, but been an integral part of the transformation of the hotel industry over almost 200 years.

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