Legends of Indochnina Singapore's Raffles HotelPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Raffles Hotel in Singapore is one of the grand hotels listed in Legends of IndoChina. It’s truly a great hotel but one that nearly met its end when Singapore began modernizing a couple of decades ago. Raffles Hotel, along with Bugis Street, Malay kampongs and all the old shops on Victoria Street, were slated to be torn down. Then, in the hotel’s final hours, a bid to make Raffles Hotel a historical landmark won the day and the hotel was saved.
To have torn down Raffles Hotel would have been a tragedy because the hotel is really the history of Singapore. Let’s go back in history to 1887 when the Sarkies brothers—Arshak Aviet, Martin and Tigrin—leased a plot of land and a bungalow on Beach Road from an Arab merchant named Ahmed Alsagoff. They turned the bungalow into a modest hotel and called it Raffles Hotel after Singapore’s founder Sir Stamford Raffles. The brothers ran their hotel business subject to a lease that spanned several decades. Alsagoff's will stipulated that his property could not be sold until the last of his direct descendants had died. Years later, this condition was satisfied, and the land and the bungalow turned hotel on Beach Road were sold to a bank through a third party, a woman related to Alsagoff. Raffles Hotel in Singapore wasn’t the only hotel opened by the Sarkies Brothers. Others were the E&O in Penang and the Strand Hotel in Rangoon.
In time the famed Raffles Hotel attracted travellers from all over the world. The Golden Age of Travel saw the rise of tourism which led to the hotel's rapid expansion. But that didn’t mean Raffles Hotel did not have its time of troubles.
When Japan invaded Singapore they turned Raffles into their Imperial Army headquaters. The war ended and Raffles became a Red Cross centre for prisoners of war, mostly inmates from Changi Prison. The hotel fell into disrepair, the Chinese owners refused to put money into the hotel and by 1950 it was operating in the red. Then, a young Dutchman still in the twenties, Frans Schutzman, entered the scene.
Frans had been with the British underground during the war and, with a new war of independence heating up in Indonesia, he came to Singapore as a war correspondent. But, being Dutch, he was refused entrance into Indonesia and found himself stranded in Singapore.
He saw a poster of Raffles Hotel and decided to get into the hotel business. He went to see the general manager and, upon hearing that his assistant was on home leave in England, he convinced the manager to hire him on a temporary basis until the assistant returned. In a month Frans turned the hotel around, by working with the staff, and in two months Raffles was in the black. The next time the manager went on home leave, the Chinese owners promoted Frans to manager.
Publicity played a big part in Frans' earnest program to upgrade the hotel and make it the most famous hotel in Asia. He discovered that Somerset Maugham had written in one of his novels that "Raffles in Singapore stands for all the fables of the exotic east." He wrote to the author and asked for permission to use the extract in publicity material and in return he invited Maugham to stay at the Raffles when he came to Singapore. Maugham at first declined, saying he was "getting too old" and didn't think he would ever travel that far again. He changed his mind five years later.
Frans made the Singapore Sling one of the world's most famous drinks by sending the recipe to leading hotels around the world with the remark that the drink originated at Raffles in Singapore. He opened the Elizabethan Grill and suggested the construction of 400 more rooms which the board considered impractical. He couldn't do much about additions but he did make changes when they were needed, like the time King Faisal of Saudi Arabia announced he was arriving and needed four large suites. Raffles didn't have any large suites, so Frans sent the guests on one floor packing to another hotel, at his expense, and immediately set his carpenters to work. They tore out walls and partitions, added glass doors, wallpaper and curtains and welcomed the King when he arrived the next day.
Frans became a lifelong friend of many of the hotel guests. He dined often with the Sultan of Johor and Xavier Cougat and the volumes of photo albums in his office contained autographed pictures of Ava Gardner, Gloria Swanson, Somerset Maugham, Jane Mansfield and Abbie Lane; Frans shaking hands with Lyndon B. Johnson, Ben Gazara, King Khalid; smiling at the camera beside William Holden and many heads of state including President and Mrs. Ferdinand Marcos.
To upgrade the hotel, Frans made it a policy that all guests wear dinner jackets and ties should they desire to dine in the Elizabethan Grill. The move was also aimed to keep out dowdy soldiers who were coming in drunk and causing trouble. One evening, a Chinese banker brought a guest to the Raffles for dinner. They were not in proper dress so Frans refused them admission. Furious and humiliated, the Chinese banker bought a share into Raffles and, after four years, proceeded to become chairman of the board, and thereafter made Frans Schutzman's life as miserable as he could make it.
Frans’ tenure at the hotel ended when he walked out on the board. It started when Somerset Maugham wrote to say he was going on a sentimental tour to visit all the places that inspired his writing. Frans invited him for the second time to be the hotel's guest but the chairman refused saying Frans had no right to invite anybody to the hotel and that Maugham was rich enough to pay his own way. The invitation had already been headlined by local papers. Frans invited him anyway and paid the famous author's expenses out of his own pocket and, when Maugham left, he resigned. Frans Schutzman, of course, moved on to become GM of other great hotels around the world including the Manila Hotel in Manila
Raffles was designated a national monument in 1987 and was closed down in 1989 for a major restoration programme. In September 1991, the grand old lady with a shiny new dress and smart make-up was reopened, this time as an all-suites hotel with 104 rooms, each with 4m high ceilings, central air-conditioning and overhead fans to give the guests the feeling of living in another era.
The hotel has a museum with old photographs and letters on display and an interesting array of the hotel's china and silver, hand-written picture postcards, advertisements and hotel brochures and other travel memorabilia that includes old travel and guide books, luggage labels and travel posters.
Two of the letters donated to the museum came from Franz Schutzman. One letter thanks Frans for his hospitality during his final visit in 1959. The second letter, written from Luxor, Egypt, is the one that gave permission for the hotel to use the famous quotation. Maugham was but one of many writers who immortalized the historic hotel. Among the others who sojourned there included Rudyard Kipling, Noel Coward, Han Suyin, Charlie Chaplin, James Michener and so many more. Many of them lend their immortal words and even their names to the hotel. A few had suites named after them.
The Singapore Sling is still one of the most popular drinks in Asia today. According to Roberto Peragas, the last general manager of Raffles before the restoration, the Long Bar sold on the average of two thousand Singapore Slings a day. Unfortunately those days have passed. The guest rooms are closed off to the public. Only registered guest can pass beyond an iron grill gate where a liveried guard stands.
Raffles Hotel today is actually a complex that boasts of 70 regional and international specialty shops. In fact, Raffles is so vast you can get lost wandering about. Brass plaques like road signs are everywhere pointing out directions.
I can’t help wondering what Somerset Maugham would think if he were to come back today.
Next week I will take readers in quest of old bars or Asia. QUESTIONS & ANSWERSDear Mr. Stephens, Could you remind your readers that coming to Phuket next week is the Six Senses Phuket Raceweek, Thailand's most exciting regatta. It will comprise of four days of first-class yacht racing and five nights of glittering parties. Some 44 boats competed in Raceweek 2008 and the organisers are confident that the numbers will increase yet again in 2009. Thank you. Benjamin Dupal, CEO of Singapore- based NRG Engineering,
A: Dear Mr. Dupal. I will post your request. It does sound very interesting.
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
