Clients can make like a 19th century bourgeoisie and stay at the Grand Hotel Parker's
BY: Steve MacNaull
It all started with an incessant hangover, problematic gambling debt and a switch in ownership at Naples’ first and oldest 5-star hotel.
Let me explain.
One morning in 1889, George Parker Bidder III was sleeping off a night of debauchery at the Hotel Tramontano Beau Rivage when there was a persistent knock at the door. Peeved, Parker Bidder opened the door to his suite to find hotel owner Albert Brazil with a fat bailiff in tow.
All guests were being tossed out and the hotel closed due to insolvency pandemonium stemming from Mr. Brazil’s sizeable gambling debt. Parker Bidder, wanting nothing more than his bed for more restorative sleep, told Mr. Brazil and the bailiff to put the debt on his hotel bill and kindly leave him alone.
Thus, Grand Hotel Parker’s was born. Parker Bidder was a marine biologist by profession, but had wads of family money, enabling him to continue his residency at the swanky hotel and his research on sea sponges.
It’s a tale today’s owner – third-generation hotelier Giovanni Torre Avallone – gleefully recounts as he tours me around the storied property.
After all, the 67-room-and-suite Grand Hotel Parker’s has a rich history and a colourful past that’s led to its present day status as the finest hotel in Naples, Italy and the city’s first and only Relais & Chateaux property.
My family is staying at Grand Hotel Parker’s, using it as a luxurious base to discover this Italian city on the Tyrrhenian Sea.
We’ll take a pizza-making class (Naples is the birthplace of pizza, after all), stroll the seaside along buzzy Via Partenope and Via Caracciolo, get lost in narrow, cobblestoned streets of Old Town and happen upon Piazza del Plebiscito, the city’s largest square, to admire the architecture and watch kids play a pick-up soccer game.
Forre Avallone tells me Naples is having a tourism renaissance inspired by the city’s star turns in actor Stanley Tucci’s CNN chronicles ‘Searching for Italy’ on the wonders of Italian food and culture and the TV series My Brilliant Friend depicting the beauty and grit of Naples in the 1950s.
Air Canada has cottoned on to this renaissance and this spring started four-times-weekly flights between Montreal and Naples so visitors can have direct access to this exciting destination.
Naples is also the gateway to the tourist-magnet Amalfi Coast and the island of Capri.
Forre Avallone attended the reception at Naples Airport welcoming the first Air Canada flight.
“I want to share with Canadians the beauty of the Grand Hotel Parker’s and Naples and invite them to come and visit us,” he said.
“Naples used to have a bad reputation with the mafia, as being dangerous, for being gritty. There’s no more mafia, it’s not dangerous. Naples is a beautiful city to fall in love with.”
In fact, Forre Avallone expects Air Canada’s Montreal-Naples flights to be a hit and hopes non-stops between Toronto and Naples are next.
Back to the Grand Hotel Parker’s attributes. The elegant, 6-storey building was originally part of the city estate of Count Salvatore Grifeo, the Prince of Palagonia, who sold it to Guglielmo Tramontano, who in turn transformed into a hotel in 1870 to cater to the bourgeoisie class on their Grand Tours of Europe.
Torre Avallone’s grandfather, Francesco Paolo Avallone, a Naples lawyer, bought the hotel in 1945.
Fun fact, the elder Avallone was Diego Maradona’s lawyer.
Maradona, of course, is the late ‘hand of God’ Argentinian soccer star who played for SSC Napoli 1984-91 and is still hailed as a hero in the city.
The facade, revolving front door and art-filled lobby of the Grand Hotel Parker’s have all recently been fully restored to their former glory giving the place a lustre reminiscent of the Grand Tour days.
All rooms and suites have been renovated with wood parquet floors, sumptuous beds, furnishings, bathrooms and toiletries befitting a 5-star, Relais & Châteaux hotel and vintage, upright travel trunks containing the mini-bar — another nod to its Grand Tour history.
The 6th floor and rooftop — housing the Bidder Terrace restaurant and bar and two-Michelin-star George Restaurant — has the best view in the city over Old Town and the Bay of Naples to Mount Vesuvius and the island of Capri.
Check out www.grandhotelparkers.it and www.aircanada.com.
