better served by keeping the scandal quiet. Lady de Grey sided with Ritz; she cancelled her party at the Savoy on learning of his sacking, stating "Where Ritz goes, I go". Ritz subsequently established a Carlton Hotel in Haymarket, built in 1897–99 under the designs of C.J. Phipps. Bombed in World War II, the hotel was later replaced by New Zealand House in 1959. Ritz hotels Ritz would go on to find investors and open a number of his own hotels. By the late 1890s, Ritz was an extremely busy man, with hotel enterprises in Rome, Frankfurt, Salsomaggiore, Palermo, Biarritz, Wiesbaden, Monte Carlo, Lucerne and Menton and projects in Madrid, Cairo and Johannesburg. According to his wife, "César's suitcases were never completely unpacked; he was always either just arriving from or departing upon a new journey". In 1896, he formed the Ritz Hotel syndicate with South African millionaire Alfred Beit, reputedly the wealthiest man in the world at the time. They opened what would become the celebrated Hôtel Ritz in the Place Vendôme, Paris, late in 1898. At the inauguration, on 1 June 1898, were many figures of the European elite, including Lady de Grey, the Duke and Duchess de Rohan, Calouste Gulbenkian, and Marcel Proust. He went on to open The Ritz Hotel in London in 1905, which became one of the most popular meeting places of the era for the rich and famous. The Ritz Hotel in Madrid, opened in 1906, inspired by King Alfonso XIII's desire to build a luxury hotel to rival the Ritz in Paris. Ritz enjoyed a long partnership with Auguste Escoffier, the now-famous French chef and father of modern French cooking. The partnership lasted until Ritz had to retire in 1907 because of deteriorating health. Later life The hotelier himself withdrew progressively from the affairs of his various companies, selling his interests in hotels at Frankfurt and Salsomaggiore in 1905 and retiring from the Ritz Hotel Development Company in 1907, from the Carlton Hotel Company in 1908, and from the Paris Ritz Company in 1911. By 1912, according to Marie-Louise Ritz, to all intents and purposes his life had finished. In 1913, he was placed in a private hospital at Lausanne, and the following year he was moved to another on Lake Küssnacht in Canton Schwyz. He died at Küssnacht on 26 October 1918. Although from a humble Swiss background, César Ritz and