My wife and I just came back from a two week driving trip through Portugal. We played it by ear and only booked our lodging the morning of each place we visited using the abundance of AmEx points we have acquired over the pandemic. In the town of Coimbra we stayed in a suite once occupied by the future Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War and in Sintra we stayed in one used by Princess Margaret around 1960. Both rooms were filled with plaques, artwork, and photographs commemorating the visits.
The only other time I have encountered this was in a room we stayed in in Ronda, Spain 20 years ago. That room had supposedly been occupied by Ernest Hemingway in the 1950s. Perhaps this is an Iberian or European thing. I’m sure I have stayed in multiple hotels in the US that once hosted national leaders, famous artists, and other celebrities. The Beatles must have occupied hundreds of rooms during their touring years. When I stayed at the Hyatt (Riot House) in Hollywood, somebody famous from Rock history must have used (or trashed) that room in a previous era. But I’ve never seen any such commemoration. Perhaps something in the lobby, but nothing specific to a room. I’m surprised such history isn’t used to raise the price or desirability of specific rooms.
Has anybody else slept in a room with “history” and was it touted by the hotel?
The Mrs. and I stayed in a “casita” at a resort that was reported to have been the room shared by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn when they shot a movie nearby at the old Tucson Studios many decades ago. The resort did not tout it as such but it was noted in the online history of the place.
I once had to stay at a motel in Lone Pine CA when the truck broke down in Saline Valley. A ton of old Western movies had been shot in Lone Pine and the surrounding area, and the room had lots of old photos of the movies and their stars.
I made a trip to western New York a couple years ago. I stayed at a small, old hotel in Watkins Glen that had some pictures on the walls from the town’s auto racing history. One of them had a caption that said Briggs Cunningham and his team had stayed there back in the '50s or '60s, but it didn’t say which room.
I took a tour once of the tall ship USCGC Eagle. The ship was originally built in Germany in the 1930s and was taken by the U.S. after WWII as reparations/war prize. The person who showed me around pointed out the cabin, and the bed where Hitler had stayed when he visited the ship. I did a google search just now and I only find two short visits by Hitler, so I can’t say whether he really stayed or slept there. I didn’t get to stay in the same room, and didn’t really want to.
Once when my brother and I were young, Mom took us on a trip through Florida and we stayed at a run-down motel. The pool was green with algae and the rooms were decrepit, but a newspaper clipping proudly displayed at the front desk claimed Lassie had stayed there while filming a movie. We joking wondered if we got her room…maybe even with the very same sheets on the bed…
I stayed in the Clark Gable room at the La Posada Hotel in Winslow AZ. (I’m not sure if he actually slept in that room or if it is just named after him)
In addition to staying in the room previously occupied by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (as noted in my previous post in this thread), I also visited the room in the Oatman, AZ hotel where Clark Gable and Carol Lombard honeymooned. It was, um, cosy, to say the least.
I once stayed in the Jerry Garcia Suite in the Triton Hotel in San Francisco. It was decorated with some original paintings by Garcia, and there was a spot on the wall where he had signed his name directly on the wall (it was covered by a sheet of clear plastic), along with a photo of him sitting in the room. You can see it in the first photo here. I don’t know if the room still exists; I don’t see any mention of it on the hotel’s website now.
My family once stayed in this castle for a couple days on a road trip through France. A plaque in our suite informed us we were staying in the rooms that had once been the original lord’s quarters when the castle was constructed a few hundred years ago.
There must be loads of rooms in the Chelsea Hotel with the plate “Rock star N.N. shot up heroin/fucked another rock star/committed suicide in this room”.