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Douglas House, London
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The Douglas House, London was a US servicemen's club
operated by the United States Air Force for twenty-five years at two
different locations in London's West End. The club's purpose was to
provide "home-style service" for the thousands of American airmen based
in the United Kingdom and US servicemen of all branches who might be
passing through. The first location opened after the Second World War in
Mayfair. In 1959 the Douglas House was relocated to Lancaster Gate, near
Hyde Park. In the early 1960s, its nightclub served as a springboard for
the budding career of a nascent London band called the Detours, that
later went on to greater fame as The Who. When the club closed in 1970,
the property was sold to a private firm.
The original Douglas House, which opened either during or after the
Second World War, occupied the former Guards Club building at 41–43
Brook Street in Mayfair. The second Douglas House was located at 66
Lancaster Gate, W2, in the Bayswater/Hyde Park district of London, one
block north of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and the actual Lancaster
Gate on Bayswater Road.
The facilities of the first Douglas House included volleyball, handball,
and badminton courts and evening cabarets and dances.[3] The second
Douglas House, on Lancaster Gate, had 110 low-cost hotel rooms for
families as well as singles, a restaurant, nightclub, soda bar,
four-chair barber shop, TV lounge, bureau de change, and a newsstand
that sold American periodicals. One former serviceman remembered that
the restaurant, which "specialized in steaks, spaghetti and meatballs,
chicken wings, ham, roasts, and baked and fried chicken," was "the best
place [in London] for American food."
The first Douglas House opened in the former Guards Club on Brook
Street, W1, either during or immediately after the Second World War as a
leave centre for US servicemen. The building that housed the second club
was originally a block of white stuccoed flats or townshouses built in
the Victorian era as part of a Bayswater area real estate development.
After the Air Force acquired the property, the Douglas House began
operating on 2 May 1959. It was jointly named for Air Force Secretary
James H. Douglas, Jr. and
Lewis Williams Douglas, a former US
ambassador to Great Britain.
In 1960, in honour of the marriage of Princess
Margaret and Anthony Armstrong Jones, the club attracted attention by
offering free dinners on the royal wedding day, 6 May, to any serviceman
named Tony who had a wife named Margaret. That same year, the Douglas
House sponsored an Independence Day celebration in Battersea Gardens
that attracted thousands of American servicemen and their families. In
November 1960 the club hosted an all-night presidential election watch
party. In late 1962 a five-piece London band called the Detours played
several dates at the Douglas House nightclub. Later, after changing
their name to The Who, the group went on to become of one Great
Britain's most popular and successful rock bands. On 12 June 1963,
Country and Western singer Jim Reeves also performed at the Douglas
House. In 1970 the Douglas House was sold by Druce and Company to Adda
Hotels, which later remodelled the property and then reopened it as the
188-room full-service Charles Dickens Hotel. In 1999, the property was
acquired by Ryan Hotels for £16.9 million. Following further
remodelling, it was operated as the Hyde Park Gresham Hotel until 2007
when it became the Park Inn Hotel. Presently, the property is known as
the Lancaster Gate Hotel (not to be confused with the nearby Lancaster,
London).
A blue plaque, attached to the Leinster Terrace end of the building in
1977, commemorates American author Bret Harte, who resided and died at
74 Lancaster Gate in 1902. |
Source
Sources for this article include:
Springfield Union, 3 May 1959Star Spangled Square; Geoffrey
Williamson, 1956
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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