is temporarily closed from January 2023. The Rivoli Bar, built in the Art Deco style, was designed in 2001 by interior designer Tessa Kennedy to resemble the bar on the Orient Express. History Construction and early history Swiss hotelier César Ritz, the former manager of the Savoy Hotel, opened the hotel on 25 May 1906. It was built on the site which had been the Old White Horse Cellar, which by 1805 was one of the best known coaching inns in England. The financial backers of the Ritz felt that they had secured one of the prime sites in London for their project. They began negotiations in 1901, and completed the transactions for the simultaneous purchase of the leasehold for the Walsingham House Hotel and the adjacent freehold estate of the Bath Hotel for £250,000 in 1902. Demolition of both of the hotels began in 1904. The building is neoclassical in the Louis XVI manner, built during the Belle Époque to resemble a stylish Parisian block of flats, over arcades that consciously evoked the Rue de Rivoli. Its architects were Charles Mewès, who had previously designed Ritz's Hôtel Ritz Paris, and Arthur Davis, with engineering collaboration by the Swedish engineer Sven Bylander. It was one of the earliest substantial steel frame structures in London, the Savoy Hotel extension of 1903-04 being the first in the capital. Many of the materials used in the construction of the hotel were US-made. The initial fees for suites ranged from 1 1/2 guineas to 3 1/2 guineas. After opening, a long-running feud between the hotel and Lord Wimbourne, a steel magnate who lived next door at Wimbourne House, lasted for years in a dispute over land. A number of locals were also concerned about the building and the impact it would have on their health. While the Ritz was still under construction, a series of events highlighted the need for another luxury hotel in London. A 3June 1905 Daily Mail news story reported it was both Derby Week and the height of the tourist season, making hotel accommodation almost impossible to find. The Savoy had to refuse reservations, while Buckingham Palace turned offices into makeshift hotel rooms for visitors. An estimated 2,500 more persons needing rooms were expected shortly with the coming visit of the King of Spain. Though the opening of the Savoy had brought about a marked change in how hotels provided