Corinthia Budapest is 10 years old

When Alfred Pisani first walked into the derelict former Grand Hotel Royal in the Hungarian capital, his bank manager asked whether he really wanted to buy it.

The building on one of Budapest’s main boulevards had squatters inside, was partly burnt, and nowhere near the splendour of the first hotel in Europe to have electricity and a lift when it opened in 1896.

But Mr Pisani, founder and chairman of the Maltese Corinthia hotel chain, thought otherwise. He bought the building in 1996 and some seven years later the Royal was reborn as the Corinthia Budapest with a façade and ballroom restored to their original design.

The hotel also came with a sprawling spa facility that formed part of an adjacent building and which was built in 1903.

Mr Pisani welcomed Tourism Minister Karmenu Vella and other distinguished guests for a gala dinner at Corinthia Budapest as the hotel celebrated its 10th anniversary last week. His bank manager was also there. Mr Pisani recalled with fondness the transformation of the building. “I speak with a sense of awe at the history of this wonderful property.

“It is a landmark with deep roots in this city and Corinthia breathed a soul back into it,” he said.

The Royal served as the Gestapo’s headquarters when Germany occupied Budapest towards the end of World War II. It was destroyed in the 1956 Hungarian revolution and rebuilt after that as a modest hotel.

When the Pisani family set its eyes on the Royal, the building had been derelict for quite some time. It was soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall when Hungary, like the rest of Eastern Europe, was emerging from decades of Communist rule and the state-owned Royal was up for sale.

Corinthia, which had already invested in another Budapest hotel, seized the opportunity and today the ballroom features a fresco of Alfred Pisani alongside other portraits of the Royal’s previous owners.

Mr Vella, who spent 10 years at Corinthia as a senior executive, said it was Mr Pisani’s “craving for perfection” that allowed the company to grow internationally and come to own important buildings in some of Europe’s major cities.

“Corinthia is well-placed to be an ambassador for Malta in the countries where it operates,” he said.

Mr Vella remarked that Wizz Air, the largest low-cost airline in central and Eastern Europe, will start to operate a Malta-Budapest route later this month, further encouraging closer ties between the two destinations.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com