Grand Pacific Hotel (Fiji)

In 1910 the Managing Director of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, Sir James Mills, commissioned plans for a hotel run by the company to serve the needs of passengers on its transpacific routes. A two-acre site on land reclaimed from Suva Harbour was chosen on the landing spot for the original Suva village, called Vu-ni-vesi after the trees nearby, and the hotel itself was designed by Salmond & Vanes ARIBA FNZIA, architects of Dunedin.^[1][2] Their design of the hotel was to make the passengers think they had never gone ashore, with rooms designed like first-class staterooms, complete with saltwater bathrooms and plumbing fixtures identical to those on an ocean liner. All rooms were on the second floor, and guests could step outside on a 15-foot (4.6 m)-wide veranda overlooking the harbour and walk completely around the building — as if walking on the deck. The style was colonial in emphasis, with high ceilings, louvred French doors and the wrap-around verandah that were all designed to maximise cool comfort in the tropical climate. Construction of the hotel in reinforced ferro-concrete was undertaken by Hall Hogg & Company of Dunedin, and the Hotel opened on 23 May 1914.^[3][4]

It was not long before the hotel became the centre of the colonial society in Suva, attracting not only tourists but all manner of official visits and grand balls to celebrate important visitors and events. In February 1915, former Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin stayed in the hotel on his way to San Francisco to serve as Australian Commissioner to the Panama–Pacific International Exposition.^[5] In 1916 writer Somerset Maugham was a guest at the hotel and provided a characteristically acerbic description of his stay there, noting: "It is cool and empty ... The servants are Hindus, silent and vaguely hostile ... the food is very bad but the rooms are pleasant, fresh and cool."^[6]

Australian journalist Thomas John McMahon visited Fiji in 1921 and provided his own description of the Grand Pacific Hotel in his profile of the island nation that was published in The Sydney Mail:

One thing Suva can boast of is the possession of the most palatial hotel in the Southern Hemisphere. It was here that the Prince of Wales was entertained. On steamer days — that is, when steamers are in from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and America — the 'G.P.H.', as this comfortable hotel is termed, is a little world in itself, the like of which cannot, perhaps, be seen anywhere else. Tourists from all countries, and speaking all languages, assemble in the great public hall, and there are dancing and feasting, music and chatter. Natives dressed in fantastic garbs come to sell curios, beads, and mats. There is a continuous stream of motor-cars coming and going, and their tooting is deafening. The whole scene is one of the gayest and most animated imaginable, and there is little wonder that Suva is fast becoming one of the most attractive places for the globe-trotter and tourist.^[7]

In 1928 Sir Charles Kingsford Smith landed his plane into Albert Park near the hotel, having flown from California, en route to Australia to complete the first trans-Pacific flight from the United States to Australia.^[8] Before his departure, a ball was held in his and his crew's honour at the Grand Pacific Hotel on 6 June 1928.^[9] In July 1929, a reception was held at the hotel to receive the crew of the German cruiser Emden and their commander, Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, as part of their worldwide tour.^[10] Other notable visitors include Lord Northcliffe (1921),^[11] Douglas Fairbanks (1935),^[12] James A Michener during his time writing Tales of the South Pacific in 1946–1947,^[13] and Noël Coward, who stayed for two weeks in 1962.^[14]

When members of the British royal family visited Fiji, they stood atop the wrought-iron portico, the "bow" of the Grand Pacific, and addressed their subjects massed across Victoria Parade in Albert Park. The first Royal visit occurred in April 1920, with the reception of Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, during his tour to Australia and New Zealand on board HMS Renown.^[15] The Renown returned to Suva again en-route to Australia in February 1927, this time with The Duke and Duchess of York, who were also received at the hotel.^[16] In 1935 an official ball was held at the hotel to celebrate the visit of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester.^[17]

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh have stayed at the hotel on several occasions, the first being in 1953, followed by visits in 1973, 1977 and 1982.^{[18][19][20][21]} In 1970, Charles, Prince of Wales attended a state dinner at the hotel to celebrate Fiji’s Independence.^[21] The royal connection to the hotel has also continued since the 2014 reopening, with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex becoming the most recent members of the Royal Family to stay in the Royal Suite during their 2018 visit to Fiji.^[22]