OVER three decades, the Australian Peter Stafford managed the Savoy, the Mandarin and the Dorchester hotels, three of the grandest hotels in the world. He was seen as one of the greatest hoteliers of his generation. To the Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, whose London home was the Savoy, Stafford was “Australia’s best ambassador”.
The second of six children, Peter was the son of a Gallipoli veteran who was, for 50 years, the golf professional at the Brisbane Golf Club. Michael Stafford’s disposition and dedication were to become apparent in his son.
After a Catholic education and qualifying as a teacher in Brisbane, Stafford joined the Royal Australian Air Force in September 1943 as a trainee navigator. He reached England not long before VE Day and so did not see any action, although after the war he rescued prisoners of war from camps in Germany and brought them home. On his return to Queensland, he taught a dozen pupils in the one-teacher school in the state’s southeast, staying with a widow on her dairy farm.
By 1948, Stafford was back in London, and two years later a chance meeting in a pub in 1950 led him and his brother, Michael, to an hotel in North Berwick, managed by Peter Hiller, brother of the actress, Dame Wendy Hiller. Peter Hiller arranged an exchange for Stafford in Paris with the Palais d’Orsay, near Gare d’Orsay. His grand career had begun. On his return to London in 1952 he managed the reception desk at Claridge ‘s where he welcomed a succession of crowned heads for the Queen’s coronation.
In June 1954, after only six weeks at the Baur au Lac in Zurich, Stafford was appointed assistant manager at the Savoy. The rich, the gifted and the famous had been flocking to the Savoy since its opening in 1884 and were still checking in during Stafford’s time, 70 years later.
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It was at the Savoy that Stafford made his reputation. His absence over Christmas early in his time there was so felt by his staff that he stayed in from then on. He was never afraid of confronting difficult guests. A certain Hungarian-born actress reduced one housemaid to tears but after she left a second one in floods, Stafford suggested that the star might be happier at another hotel.
After 16 years, fearing that he would become the oldest assistant general manager in the world, Stafford left the Savoy. In February 1970, the charismatic chairman of City Hotels, Harold Lee, invited him to become general manager of the Mandarin in Hong Kong. This was perhaps the apogee of his career. To get to know his staff of 1,200 at the Mandarin, he hired a ferry every Saturday afternoon for six weeks and asked them to join him with their families for a picnic. During his five years in Hong Kong, the Mandarin was regarded — by the industry and by popular acclaim — as the best hotel in the world.
At times the hotel enjoyed incredibly high occupancy and he overheard one of his staff say, “Oh, you’re lucky to get a room.”
Stafford was mortified by the statement and exhorted his managers to say to guests, “Thank you for staying with us”, even when the Mandarin was full. And yet he did take some risks. On the first night of Barry Humphries’ cabaret at the Mandarin, a vermilion-faced figure with terrible teeth and a hideous suit stumbled into the room spraying insults and spittle among the audience. Many thought an Australian guest had wandered out of the bar, until Les Patterson in all his ghastly glory revealed himself (more or less) to a vastly amused, mainly Chinese, audience. Stafford was much relieved. Two such disparate expatriates could not be imagined.
In early 1976 Stafford returned to the Savoy as a director but after six months he was lured to the Dorchester as its managing director. Many of the old guard among the staff were fearful of the changes “young Mr Stafford” might bring. In fact, he appreciated the history of his hotels and respected their traditions. A favourite refrain of his was, “If anything is working, think 20 times before you change it.” To allay staff concerns he quickly called a meeting and told them, “You must remember that I need you much more than you need me.”
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Anton Mosimann, whose genius was first recognized by Stafford at the Dorchester, recalled guests saying, “We’re not staying at the Dorchester; we’re staying with Peter.”
He was never an ebullient, back- slapping host, but guests found him to be supremely good company — sympathetic, intuitive, and witty. To keep in step with his guests and yet impede the path to oblivion, he would, when ordering a drink, ask waiters and bar staff for “the usual”, a concoction that merely looked alcoholic. Many guests became lifelong friends. His love of opera brought him close to Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland and Regina Resnik. The actress Ava Gardner and Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, were also intimates.
In 1979 Stafford moved to Venice where he spent the next 20 years. He undertook a number of consultancies over the years, most notably a memorable opening of Sydney’s Hotel Inter-Continental for Alistair McAlpine in 1985. When his health declined at the end of the 1990s, he returned to Australia.
Stafford’s philosophy was a simple one. “If one has a happy staff, one has a happy guest.” Many of his colleagues — concierges, maître d’s, managers and chefs went on to serve with distinction in hotels around the world. He brought a humanity to the grand hotels he managed without allowing them to lose any of their grandeur.
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Peter Stafford, hotelier, was born in Brisbane on May 22, 1925. He died in Sydney on July 7, 2004, aged 79.