Sipping his coffee amid the faded colonial grandeur of the hotel he has stayed in three times a year for 15 years, John Sanderson is not quite ready to say goodbye.

Frequent guest John Sanderson.

In 1975, he visited the Imperial Hotel in Sliema for the first time while playing an extra in the blockbuster Shout at the Devil with Roger Moore. He will leave today as one of its last ever guests, as the storied hotel finally closes its doors after 152 years before being converted into a residence for the elderly.

“The staff here are like family,” Mr Sanderson told the Times of Malta. “I don’t want a tinned hotel; I like a good chat. Here we’ve got to know about boyfriends and girlfriends and fights at home. You don’t get that anywhere else these days. It’s just ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, sir’.”

Originally built as a villa for an 18th-century Maltese nobleman and later used as a hunting lodge by British Governors, the Rudolph Street hotel first opened its doors in 1865 and closes today ahead of a planned conversion into a residence for the elderly.

It has been around for long enough that its old brochures boast of electric lighting throughout the hotel and list a telegram address along with a phone number.

In that time, it has hosted a veritable roll call of important figures: from the former James Bond actor to Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, is said to have hatched his plans in the garden where Roger Moore later filmed parts of his war adventure.

The same garden was later the victim of the first bomb to fall in Sliema during World War II and kept the ‘wrens’ of the Women’s Royal Naval Service safe from prying eyes. But a day before these memories are consigned to history, much of its past glory feels sadly threadbare.

The striking Victorian double staircase still greets guests, but signs for a ‘TV Lounge’ and ‘Gentlemen’s Cloakroom’ speak of a failure to move with the times, even as the surrounding town changed beyond recognition.

Between them, the hotel’s housekeeper and maintenance man have worked here for more than 70 years. As rooms are stripped for the last time, they speak sadly of the owners’ reluctance, in recent years, to invest in sorely needed renovations. Long-time guests kept up their regular appointments, but the flow of fresh faces began to dry up.

General manager Joe Attard has worked at the Imperial for 14 years. He says the changing business environment has made it harder for hotels like this to maintain their edge.

When he first came on board, guests might have stayed at the hotel for two weeks without leaving the building. Today, they’re more likely to spend a few days and do all their eating and drinking elsewhere.

Mr Attard is confident that the new owners will maintain the beautiful architecture and that the planned residence for the elderly will breathe new life into the old building, but the farewell hasn’t been easy.

“It’s been an emotional day for everyone,” he says.“We’ve had guests crying. It really is like a family.”

Back at the hotel bar, Mr Sanderson recalls a dancing lesson years ago, furniture pushed to the side to make room. Once, guests at the Imperial Hotel would have worn dinner jackets and cocktail dresses. Today, they wear jeans. Tomorrow, they’ll be gone.