25-535: 127 (serviced apartments) Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore is a five-star deluxe hotel located on Orange Grove Road, off Orchard Road, in Singapore. Opened on 23 April 1971, the hotel is Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts ' first hotel property. The hotel has 792 guestrooms and suites, as well as 127 serviced apartments, which require a minimum stay of six nights to be booked, along with 55 condominium units which necessitate longer stays of at least three months. The hotel hosts
50-740: A Tibetan Buddhist centre with the occasional Tibetan monks in saffron robes. The name " Shangri-La " has become a byword for a mythical utopia , a permanently happy land, isolated from the world. After the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, when the fact that the bombers had flown from an aircraft carrier remained highly classified, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the press facetiously that they had taken off from Shangri-La. The Navy subsequently gave that name to an aircraft carrier , and Roosevelt named his presidential retreat in Maryland Shangri-La. (Later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower renamed
75-632: A blue plaque marking Hilton's residence. By 1938, he had moved to California, and his work became more connected with the Hollywood film industry. He married Alice Brown, a secretary at the BBC, just before they left for the United States in 1935, but they divorced in 1937. The same year, he married actress Galina Kopernak , but they divorced eight years later. He became an American citizen in 1948. A heavy smoker, Hilton had various health problems when he made
100-403: A "special event area" was declared around the hotel and Capella Singapore . Extra security measures were in force from 10 to 14 June 2018. Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts ( Chinese : 香格里拉酒店 ) is a multinational hospitality company , founded in 1971 by tycoon Robert Kuok and bearing the name of a Far Eastern mythical land of contentment depicted in
125-736: A farewell visit to England in 1954, and in December he died at his home in Long Beach, California , from liver cancer , with his reconciled former wife Alice at his side. His obituary in The Times describes him as "a modest and retiring man for all his success; he was a keen mountaineer and enjoyed music and travel." He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Long Beach) . After his wife Alice Brown Hilton died in 1962, his remains were reinterred at Knollkreg Memorial Park (Abingdon, Virginia ). Some of Hilton's novels were filmed: Hilton co-wrote
150-538: Is Kuok Hui-kwong. The first hotel of the luxury Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts Group was the Shangri-La Hotel Singapore , opened on 23 April 1971. The name derives from the mythical place Shangri-La , described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton . The Shangri-La Hotel Singapore was managed by Westin Hotels & Resorts , until Shangri-La International Hotel Management Limited
175-643: Is a grim story of legally approved lynching brought on by wartime hysteria in Britain. Sigmund Freud , an early admirer despite his tepid reaction to The Meadows of the Moon , came to conclude that Hilton had wasted his talent by being too prolific. From 1948 to 1952, Hilton was also host of one of radio's prestige drama anthologies, Hallmark Playhouse . He also presented six episodes of Ceiling Unlimited (1943) and hosted The Hallmark Playhouse (1948–1953) for CBS Radio . First published in 1933, this novel won Hilton
200-526: The 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution . The Tower Wing, which opened in 1971, is the hotel's main wing; it houses the deluxe rooms, executive rooms, Horizon Club rooms, and Horizon Premier Suite. Additionally, the majority of the dining outlets in the hotel are located in the Tower Wing. The Garden Wing, located within the hotel's 15 acres of landscaped gardens, opened in 1978. It houses 158 guestrooms and suites, all of which are fitted with balconies. In 2011,
225-718: The Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and from there travelling back to the 1930s. In addition to its U.S. publication, the novel was further published in Germany, France, Spain and Portugal and Poland and (Eastern Europe) was a New York Times Notable Book. A furore was caused in the late 1990s, when Wigan Council (the Metropolitan Borough responsible for Leigh) announced that a blue plaque in honour of Hilton would be placed not on his house in Wilkinson Street, but on
250-618: The Hawthornden Prize in 1934. Later, Pocket Books , which pioneered the publication of small, soft-cover, inexpensive books, picked Lost Horizon as its first title in 1939. For that reason, the novel is frequently called the book that began the "paperback revolution." Hilton is said to have been inspired to write Lost Horizon , and to invent " Shangri-La ", by reading the National Geographic articles of Joseph Rock , an Austrian-American botanist and ethnologist exploring
275-651: The "Shangri-La Dialogue", is an annual " Track One " inter-governmental security forum held by the International Institute for Strategic Studies ; it is attended by defence officials from primarily Asia-Pacific states, including all 10 ASEAN member states, the United States , China and more. The summit has been held at the Shangri-La Hotel since 2002. On 3 June 2018, in preparation for the Trump–Kim summit ,
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#1732845158075300-631: The 1933 novel Lost Horizon . It is a subsidiary of Kerry Properties , the company has over 100 luxury hotels and resorts with over 40,000 rooms in Africa , Asia , Europe , the Middle East , North America and Oceania . Shangri-La has 4 brands across different market segments: Shangri-La, Traders Hotels, Kerry Hotels, and Hotel Jen. The company's head office is in Kerry Centre [ zh ] (嘉里中心), Quarry Bay , Hong Kong. The current chairman
325-486: The Garden Wing closed for renovation and reopened on 31 May 2012 after eight months of renovation which cost S$ 68 million. The Valley Wing was the last of the hotel's three wings to be completed, opening in 1985. Shangri-La Singapore describes it as "the accommodation of choice" for heads of states, business executives, and luxury travellers. The IISS Asia Security Summit: The Shangri-La Dialogue , also simply known as
350-574: The annual meeting of the Shangri-La Dialogue , described by the International Institute of Strategic Studies as "Asia's premier defence summit". In 2015, the hotel was the venue for a historic meeting between the People's Republic of China 's paramount leader Xi Jinping and the Republic of China 's President Ma Ying-jeou ; this was the first meeting between the leaders of Mainland China and Taiwan since
375-510: The book and lyrics for Shangri-La , a disastrous 1956 Broadway musical adaptation of Lost Horizon . There is one sequel to Lost Horizon titled Shangri-La and written by Eleanor Cooney and Daniel Altieri. It was licensed by the publisher William Morrow (an imprint of HarperCollins ) and approved by the heirs to the Hilton Estate, Elizabeth Hill and Mary Porterfield. Shangri-La continues James Hilton's tale, moving it forward in time to
400-635: The character of Mr. Chipping in Goodbye, Mr. Chips , a best-seller. Hilton first sent the material to The Atlantic , and the magazine printed it as a short story in April 1934. On 8 June, it was published as a book. Four months later it appeared as a book in Britain. Hilton wrote his two best remembered books, Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips , while living in a house at 42 Oak Hill Gardens, in Woodford Green in northeast London. The house still stands, with
425-470: The retreat Camp David after his grandson, and that name has been used for it ever since.) Zhongdian , a mountain region in the northwest of Yunnan province China, has been renamed Shangri-La (Xianggelila), based on its claim to have inspired Hilton's book. W.H. Balgarnie , a master at The Leys School, Cambridge and Hilton's father, headmaster of Chapel End School in Walthamstow , were the inspirations for
450-690: The southwestern Chinese provinces and Tibetan borderlands. Still living in Britain at the time, Hilton was perhaps influenced by the Tibetan travel articles of early travelers in Tibet whose writings were found in the British Library. Christian Zeeman, the Danish father of the mathematician Christopher Zeeman , has also been claimed to be the model for the hero of the story. He disappeared while living in Japan (where his son
475-423: The town hall. This caused great debate amongst the populace of Leigh, which considered it more appropriate to have it on the house itself, which is only a few hundred yards from the town hall. Subsequently, in 2013, a blue plaque was affixed to his birthplace at 26 Wilkinson Street. In 1997, a blue plaque was erected on the wall of 42 Oakhill Gardens, Woodford Green , the modest semi-detached house in which Hilton
500-508: The works were not regarded as of the same quality as his better-known novels. Hilton's books are sometimes characterised as sentimental and idealistic celebrations of English virtues. This is true of Mr. Chips , but some of his novels had a darker side. Flaws in the English society of his time—particularly narrow-mindedness and class-consciousness—were frequently his targets. His novel We Are Not Alone , despite its inspirational-sounding title,
525-454: Was an English novelist and screenwriter. He is best remembered for his novels Lost Horizon , Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Random Harvest , as well as co-writing screenplays for the films Camille (1936) and Mrs. Miniver (1942), the latter earning him an Academy Award . Hilton was born in Leigh , Lancashire , the son of John Hilton, the headmaster of Chapel End School in Walthamstow . He
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#1732845158075550-434: Was born in 1925), and was reputed to be living incognito in a Zen Buddhist monastery. Some say that the isolated valley town of Weaverville, California , in far-northern Trinity County , was a source, but this is the result of a misinterpretation of a comment by Hilton in a 1941 interview, in which he said that Weaverville reminded him of Shangri-La. Coincidentally, Junction City (about 8 miles from Weaverville) now has
575-554: Was educated at the Monoux School Walthamstow till 1914, then The Leys School , Cambridge, and then at Christ's College, Cambridge , where he wrote his first novel and was awarded an honours degree in English literature. He started work as a journalist, first for the Manchester Guardian , then reviewing fiction for The Daily Telegraph . Hilton's first novel, Catherine Herself, was published in 1920 when he
600-663: Was founded in 1979, and management of the Singapore Shangri-La was taken back over from Westin in 1984. However, it would not be until 1991 that Shangri-La assumed control of the rest of the hotels. This hotel has also become the host to a prominent inter-governmental security conference known as the Shangri-La Dialogue . As of March 2022, Shangri-La owns, operates, or manages 100 hotels in 77 destinations: [REDACTED] Media related to Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts at Wikimedia Commons James Hilton (novelist) James Hilton (9 September 1900 – 20 December 1954)
625-428: Was still an undergraduate. The next 11 years were difficult for him, and it was not until 1931 that he had success with the novel And Now Goodbye . Following this, several of his books were international bestsellers and inspired successful film adaptations, notably Lost Horizon (1933), which won a Hawthornden Prize ; Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934); and Random Harvest (1941). After this, he continued to write, but
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