which has welcomed visitors since 1903.
The imposing façade of the Taj Mahal, with its distinctive domes. Built by the father of a wealthy Parsee dynasty, it became one of India’s most famous landmarks, featuring a blend of fanciful architectural styles and open to locals and foreigners.
This spacious swimming pool was added to the Taj Mahal during one of several expansions that began in the late 1960s. A dramatic statue of a lion shoots out a jet of water.
Traditional Indian and European Art Deco elements, such as Hindhu carvings (left), wall lamps (middle) and the lion statue by the pool (right) were incorporated into the original hotel decorations.
When King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia visited in 1956 and ordered a picnic lunch for 1,200 guests to take to the races, the hotel provided asparagus soup, paté de fois gras, smoked salmon, roast turkey, chicken, lamb, guinea-fowl, nine different salads, and four desserts.
It also kept pace with the modern world. A new floor, the sixth, was added in the late 1960s and a 23-story tower wing, designed by the American architect Melton Bekker, was added in the next decade. At the same time it branched out to create the Taj Group of Hotels, which now has 54 hotels in 39 locations across India with an additional 13 hotels overseas.
In the late 1990s, as the hotel’s centenary drew near, both the old and new wings were completely renovated and refurbished. It was ready therefore to usher in the 21st century with an elaborate party on 17 January 2003, just as it had ushered in the 20th century in 1903.
Elegant railings (top) and archways (bottom) give a light, airy effect in the original building. Inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the owner ordered ten columns of spun iron to support the hotel’s ballroom.
Dramatic supports for corridors and molded stucco decorations on archways and the ceiling contribute to the overall atmosphere of the hotel.
The Taj Mahal offers generously appointed suites and rooms, each adorned with original paintings and period furniture that exude an aura of old-world charm and elegance.
An Indian-style sofa and chair, with locally-made cushions, are features in this corner of the Rajput Suite. The suite has played host to many a celebrity and head of state and features a private balcony overlooking the Gateway of India.
Interior of the enormous dome that is one of the most impressive features of the original building of the Taj Mahal, making it immediately visible to anyone arriving by sea. It was also the first commercial building in Bombay to be connected to the electrical power grid.
The Taj Mahal combines Oriental, Florentine and Moorish architectural elements to create an elegant and visually striking hotel. The high vaulted ceiling, graceful archways and intricately-detailed railings help create a palatial splendor seldom seen in contemporary establishments.
The intricate onyx columns and archway, stained glass panels and carved window panes are just a few examples of the level of detail and effort put into the Taj Mahal’s design and construction.
The hill-stations of India, especially those in the Himalayan foothills of the north, were largely British creations. Beginning in the early 19th century, the colonial rulers wanted somewhere to escape the searing heat of the Indian summer, also perhaps to escape the demands of their often troublesome subjects, and they found it in those high enclaves where the weather and plant life comfortingly resembled those of home.
"Your hill-station was scarcely more than a village,” Jan Morris wrote in her trilogy about the rise and fall of the Empire, “and was dwarfed by the scale of the country, but it had the startling impact of an intruder. It was definitely, gloriously out of place—a figure of despotic privilege. Where there should have been an eaved white temple with prayer flag up there, a Gothic steeple rose instead, with a weathercock on top and the white blobs of tombstones in the yard behind. Where one might expect the palace of Mir or Maharajah, a hotel in the Eastbourne manner stood, wicker chairs upon its terrace, awnings above its windows. There were military-looking buildings here and there, and genteel half-timbered villas disposed above rustic steps, and along the top of the ridge there ran a wide paved esplanade, with a bandstand, a fountain in a public garden, and benches, as on a promenade at home, surveying the Himalayan prospect.”
The most famous of all these retreats was in Simla (now spelled Shimla and the capital of Himachal Pradesh state), perched on a mountain ridge 7,250 feet (2,200 meters) above sea level. The setting for Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills, Simla was the summer capital of British India, where the Viceroy had an ornate palace at the top of Summer Hill and where for several months a year almost the entire government moved, along with countless family members. The trip itself was memorable, on a narrow-gauge railway that ran thrillingly for 60 miles (95 kilometers) and traversed 103 tunnels, 969 bridges and 900 curves before delivering its passengers to a magical destination with pine-scented air, a leisurely social life and spectacular scenery.
Some of the families had homes there, with very English names like “Strawberry Hill” and “Fair View” (the earliest, Kennedy Cottage, was built in 1822), and many retired to Simla’s invigorating climate after their work was done rather than return to the now-strange land of their birth. For visitors there were several hotels, of which one of the most popular was the Cecil, known as the finest hotel in north India for its comforts and colonial grandeur.
The Cecil opened in 1884 and for the remaining years of British rule its spacious rooms were crowded at the height of the summer season with a mixture of civil servants and their families, young military men on leave, and occasional tourists making a grand tour of India. There were picnics in the Glen, bracing walks through forests of cedar and pine, amateur performances at the Gaiety Theatre (where Kipling was once booed off the stage), shopping excursions to the bazaar and for a select few individuals, invitations to dine and dance at Viceroy House. It was not uncommon for romances to blossom in such pleasant settings, and occasionally there were scandals to enliven the generally bucolic atmosphere (indeed, a favorite destination on promenades was Scandal Point).
Hill stations like Simla inevitably suffered a momentary decline after independence came to India but as it turned out, sophisticated Indians were just as eager as their former rulers to enjoy such novelties as chilly air and open fireplaces and were just as willing to make the effort to journey to places that offered them such niceties. Consequently, many of the old hotels were bought by new owners and given makeovers that brought them into the top ranks of international
