15 Oct Grand Hôtel Hall of Mirrors
New Year’s Eve 1944 … photo from the wartime scrapbook of Herman F. Allen. Hedvig Johnson and Herman are in the very front.
In my father’s wartime scrapbook, I found a tiny photo of a grand formal party. It wasn’t until I blew up the photograph that I recognized our parents. I knew from a postcard they spent New Year’s Eve 1944 at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm. So besides dining at the epic “smörgåsbord” my other objective while at the Grand Hôtel was to search for a room with Corinthian columns and magnificent chandeliers. Was his photo taken on New Year’s Eve?
I didn’t have to go far. As we were walking into dinner, I handed my 1944 photograph to a young man who worked there. That’s the “Mirror Room” he said. “And yes, I can show it to you!”
So three hours and thirty minutes later, after our sumptuous dinner, we went through historic hotel hallways to the ballroom known as Spegelsalen, the “Hall of Mirrors.”
Grand Hôtel “Hall of Mirrors” September 2013
In 1898 this gilded hall was created, and it is much the same today. According to what I have read it was modeled after the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
The very first Nobel Prize ceremony and banquet in 1901 took place in this room. The ceremony was moved in 1929 to Stockholm’s new City Hall but returned just during the years 1931-1933.
Today the “Mirror Room” is where business conferences are held. And of course, fabulous parties. According to the Grand Hôtel, “it has no equivalent anywhere else in Sweden.”
As for the “Siblings in Sweden” (my sisters, brother and I) we agree. On December 31, 1944 our parents were dining and dancing in the finest room in Stockholm, a royal palace.
And we were there.
Related Posts:
Siblings in Sweden
Siblings at the Grand Hôtel
Grand Hôtel Stockholm
Mattias Eneqvist
Posted at 15:20h, 15 OctoberIsn’t that smithy who gets more drinks off the buttler?
Pat DiGeorge
Posted at 16:03h, 15 OctoberNo, Smithy (Liberty Lady pilot) had already gone back to Thurleigh by then. Here is another photo I found. Herman is in the center, and Hedy is on the far right. They’re dancing with other people.