Today Jessie Moniz starts off a weekly series for Heritage Month highlighting Bermuda’s hotels, past, present and future, and celebrating the role that these hotels have played and will play in Bermuda’s economic and social development. We start with the Fairmont Hamilton, one of Bermuda’s oldest hotels.When Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, first referred to Bermuda as “Shangri-La” in 1883, Bermuda was suddenly transformed from a sleepy, Atlantic backwater into a trendy tourism destination for wealthy Americans. Suddenly, Bermuda had a tourism industry, but where would all of Bermuda’s new diamond studded visitors be accommodated? Harley Trott, a leading businessman of the time, saw opportunity and had a hotel built to provide a winter haven. The hotel opened two years after Princess Louise’s visit to the Island, on January 1, 1885, and was named “The Princess” in her honour. It became affectionately known as “The Pink Palace” because of its architecture.“The original hotel was an all wooden structure,” said Hotel Manager Allan Trew, on a recent tour of the hotel. “None of the original part of the hotel still shows. The oldest part of the hotel now dates back to around 1930 or 1940. This year we mark our 127th anniversary since it first opened.”Mr Trew said one of the original focal points of the hotel was a beautiful sweeping veranda that came right up to the harbour. Patrons loved to sun themselves on lounge chairs on this veranda, wrapped in their fur coats, as it was a winter destination. Afternoon tea was also served on the veranda and the ladies would appear in their best dresses.Over the years it had some very distinguished patrons including author Mark Twain whose bronze statue now sits in the lobby, and Frances Hodgson Burnett author of ‘The Secret Garden’, and much later, Robert Kennedy and singer Michael Jackson.In 1939, when war was declared Bermuda’s tourism suddenly dried up over night. American residents and visitors left the Island in droves. The answer to Bermuda’s financial woes came partly when the British decided to upgrade the tiny mail censorship department in Bermuda consisting of a few local postmen, to a force to be reckoned with.Bermuda lay at the crossroads of the Atlantic. Flying boats or clippers flying back and forth across the Atlantic, had to stop in Bermuda to refuel or wait out the weather, particularly during the winter months when the gales blew across the ocean.This meant that most mail flying back and forth across the Atlantic was passing first through Bermuda. Also, Bermuda was an important rendezvous for wartime convoys. Another important advantage was it was safe from the chaos and danger of air raids.For these reasons the hub of the British Censorship Department was moved from Liverpool to Bermuda. Hundreds of British censors and examiners began to move into the Princess and the Bermudiana hotel which was used purely for housing. At one point, there was talk of bringing as many as 3,000 censors to Bermuda.There was a protest from Bermuda, because that many censors would put a tremendous burden on the Island’s food and water supply, so the plan was abandoned and there were probably never more than 700 here at one time.The department was actually used as a training ground with censors learning their craft and then being moved off to places like Trinidad or Jamaica. So in total, probably 1,100 censors worked here at different times.However, the censorship department was mostly beneficial to the Island, and helped to save its economy. Many censorship staff members rented houses, ate in local restaurants, and spent their money in shops.The censorships job was to examine mail and ship and air passengers to intercept goods that might help the Germans, such as borates (raw diamonds used in weapons productions), money, art, and food. They were also there to read the mail and detect the correspondence of German spies operating in the United States.The censors were trained in every language imaginable. Head of uncommon languages Robert Bigwood spoke over 30 different languages. They worked at trestle tables in the wooden portion of the hotel which is no longer there.Former censor, the late Margaret Mair Cooper, remembered the hotel to be a bit shabby back then, and the wooden part hot and stuffy. There were some advantages to staying at the hotel though. In their leisure time censors could swim in the pool, and there were also endless and very intense games of tennis.One of the last remaining censors, Sheila Reddicliffe Lightbody, now in her 90s living in the United Kingdom, described the Princess at that time as “a gaunt unattractive building but its rooms were spacious and well designed”.“There were good bathrooms and views over the fifth floor windows of gardens and cottages and a glimpse along the northern shore to the Dockyard,” she said. “My roommate and I would often take a quick dip in the harbour during their coffee breaks. We got into the habit of lunching on fruit and Ryvita (crackers) to make the most of the sticky summer heat when the tide was in. Otherwise there was also a good swimming pool right there at the cliff top.”In May 1944, the Americans took over censorship of mail passing through Bermuda, and most of the censors returned to the United Kingdom. Around 60 chose to remain in Bermuda. During the time here the Bermuda censors helped to catch over 40 German spies operating out of the United States.The total for all British censorship stations operating around the world was around 60, so the majority were caught through the work carried out at the Hamilton Princess.The hotel came out of the war in a slightly dilapidated condition. In 1959 American billionaire Daniel Ludwig purchased the hotel with plans to make it a luxury hotel.It reopened in 1964 with new rooms and facilities after a $9.5 million investment. Little of the original building from the 1880s remains. Some of the oldest parts today date back to the 1930s and 1940s.Throughout the 1960s and 1970s it was a haven for entertainment, both local and foreign. In a previous The Royal Gazette interview long serving employee Victoria Smith remembered accidentally bumping into singer Michael Jackson as he used the back stairs in an attempt to flee the press in 1991.There have been many architectural changes to the hotel since it first opened.“Up until 1964 we had a wonderful winding staircase,” said Mr Trew. “It was probably one of the most photographed areas in Bermuda. Everyone came here to have their picture taken on the staircase.“What is now The Fairmont Gold Lounge, in 1963 it was named the Adam Lounge, after the Johnson Brothers who had an 18th century architectural style called ‘Adam’. They were renowned for their ceilings.“I am told there are no more than ten rooms in the world that have a ceiling in this design. Everything was hand made and hand placed. It was very elegantly set with a nice long carpet throughout.“The carpet here was only replaced recently. It was made by the same company who made the carpet for the Queen’s Coronation at Westminster Abbey.”Today, the hotel is owned by the Fairmont hotel chain which owns a number of hotels around the world including The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in Banff, Canada, also named after Princess Louise.See next week’s Thursday Lifestyle’s section for a focus on Royal Palms Hotel in Pembroke.