Eastern & Oriental (E&O) Hotel in Documentary Series

PENANG Island’s iconic Eastern & Oriental (E&O) Hotel will be featured in a documentary series on Asia’s historic heri-tage structures later this year.

It is the only hotel on the island selected by an international broadcaster to be highlighted in the series, which will be aired as interstitials in the fourth quarter of 2009.

In television, interstitials are short programmes between three to five minutes long aired between full-length programmes to fill in gaps between time slots.

A production crew was recently at the hotel to do a two-day shoot, covering the lobby’s acoustic dome, the Rudyard Kipling suite, the vintage elevator, the Sarkies passage (corridor), the grand staircase, sunrise and sunset at the seafront, the exterior facade and the very traditional English afternoon tea served at its fine dining restaurant The 1885.

E & O was born to meet the demands of affluent travellers who descended on Asia in the mid 1800’s. Writers, actors, playwrights, the rich and the titled, bored with Europe and the Americas, looked to the exotic East to satisfy their wanderlust.

The Armenian Sarkies brothers, Martin and Tigran, settled down in Penang and established the Eastern Hotel in 1884.

Encouraged by their success, they opened another hotel, the Oriental in 1885, on an adjacent piece of land facing the sea. Combined, these two hotels became the largest hotel in Penang, offering 80 comfortable and tastefully appointed rooms.

In 1891, another Sarkies brother, Arshak, joined the business, adding a large ballroom in 1903.
Before long, the hotel became the centre of social life and gaiety in Penang. Famous guests who enjoyed its hospitality included Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Noel Coward, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham and Hermann Hesse.

By 1927, the E&O was pronounced in advertisements as ‘The Premier Hotel East of the Suez’, boasting more than 100 rooms, 40 of them with adjoining bathrooms, hot and cold running water, individual telephones and a 842-foot seafront, ‘the longest of any hotel in the world’.
But as the Great Depression set in, Arshak’s extravagance and mismanagement saw the E&O slipping into slow decline and after his death in 1931, changed hands several times. However, even at its lowest point, the E&O retained its charm and wea-thered the passage of time with cha-racter and grace.

Today, more than a century since its establishment, the E&O has reclaimed its past glories.
Returning to elegance, its rich heritage and unique position in Penang’s history will be documented on film to be savoured by the eyes of the world.