"New look" multi million dollar Le Grande Penthouse Hotel to open on March 15
"We'll be ready for World Cup guests" - proprietor
Stabroek News
March 9, 2007
It used to be one of Georgetown's most popular hotels and "hang out joints" during the '60s and '70s and come March 15 the Penthouse Hotel will be making a "comeback." - with all the suavity and sophistication of a modern hotel.
Its location, at the corners of Hincks and Commerce streets, seems an unlikely place for an "up market" hotel. The area is a perpetual sea of humanity - vendors of all sorts, money-changers, throngs of shoppers and the permanent din of half a dozen minibus parks.
Pamella Monasseh, the hotel's manager believes that the environment can work to the new hotel's advantage. "Hotels in busy commercial areas are not untypical of the Caribbean," she says. She believes that the hustle and bustle of "the very heart of the city" will provide the hotel's guests with an opportunity to experience "the very essence" of downtown Georgetown. That, she says, is part of what the tourist experience is all about.
Randolph Baichandeen has backed his personal confidence that the Penthouse can return to its "glory" days with a multi million dollar investment in the total transformation of the facility. He has rechristened the 30-room hotel Le Grande Penthouse, a title which his son Kavim says adds a touch of "French sophistication" to the facility. The old Penthouse, he says, has been replaced with "a modern facility, the kind that suits the contemporary traveller."
For the Baichandeens Le Grande Penthouse is about keeping a family legacy alive. The remodelling of the hotel is a shared project conceived by Randolph and executed in collaboration with Kavim and the elder Baichandeen's wife, Chaterani, an engaging woman with a self-confessed enthusiasm for the reincarnation of the new look hotel.
Randolph Baichandeen rates the Le Grande Penthouse "at least a four star hotel. To make his point he took Stabroek Business on a guided tour of the hotel. The investment shows. Inside, the ambience and décor offer a striking contrast to the din outside. Its fiberglass reinforced walls almost shut out the noise of the streets and the elegantly furnished interior bespeaks a marketing drive that targets the "high end" of the customer market.
The original Penthouse Hotel was founded in 1965 by Balram Baichandeen, Randolph's father. In its heyday it enjoyed its fair share of celebrity guests - visitors from Europe, Caribbean businessmen and a host of entertainers including The Mighty Sparrow, twice. In its time the Penthouse was one of the liveliest night spots in the city and the list of bands and local artistes that performed for its guests evokes memories of an earlier time when night life in the city was confined to just a handful of facilities. If the Penthouse is to rise again it will be under the direction of the third Baichandeen generation. Once the project is complete Randolph will return to running his hardware store. His son has already assumed a proprietorial posture.
The birth of the Le Grande Hotel was spawned by Cricket World Cup and with the opening just days away from the arrival of guests here for the Super Eight matches the Baichandeens know that they are racing against time. When Stabroek Business visited the hotel last Tuesday workmen were busy putting the finishing touches to the interior. Kavim, an Information Technology graduate and a businessman in his own right is confident that the hotel will be ready to accommodate its guests come March 15. When complete, Le Grande Penthouse will be equipped with security cameras, and "strongboxes" and internet facilities in each room.
The surfeit of hotels that have surfaced in Georgetown over the past year has raised challenging questions about suitably trained staff to manage the new facilities. The Manager of Le Grande Hotel is a Tourism Studies graduate of the University of the West Indies with considerable experience in the demanding hotel industry in Jamaica. She says that training will be one of her foremost priorities. The Baichandeens say that they are also taking advantage of the training being offered by the Guyana Tourism Authority to ready their staff to provide the quality of service that matches the high physical standards that are in evidence at the facility.