The Hotel Astoria is a historic five-star luxury hotel in Saint Petersburg, Russia, opened in 1912. It has 213 bedrooms, including 52 suites, and is located on Saint Isaac's Square, next to Saint Isaac's Cathedral and across from the historic Imperial German Embassy. The Hotel Astoria, along with its adjoining sister hotel, Angleterre Hotel, is owned and managed by Rocco Forte Hotels. The hotel underwent a complete refurbishment in 2012.
History
Site
The site of the hotel was formerly occupied by a three-story building, dating to the late 18th Century, which became the property of the Lvov princely family in the 1870s. Prince Alexander Lvov, an early proponent for the advancement of modern fire fighting in Russia, made the building the headquarters of the United Russian Fire-fighting Society, as well as the newspaper Pozharnoye delo (Fire-fighting), of which he was the editor. The ground floor contained various shops. After the turn of the 20th century, the building began offering rooms to rent. In 1902, the structure was purchased by the Rossiya Insurance Company, which demolished it in 1907 to allow for construction of a modern hotel. In 1910, the land was sold to the UK-based Palace Hotel Company, but they sold it a year later to the German construction company Wayss & Freytag, which built the hotel from 1911–1912 and owned and operated the business.[1]