The United Kingdom hotel industry gathered on board the famed HMS Belfast on Sept. 24 for the 20th anniversary celebration for Starboard Hotels, the Beaconsfield-based family office owner and operator.
It was a perfect time, both the party itself and its timing a few weeks after its largest piece of business was announced.
On Sept. 8, Starboard and joint venture partner LaSalle Investment Management acquired seven U.K. hotels from Ares and EQ Group. Starboard now has almost 30 hotels in its portfolio.
Chairman and founder Paul Callingham and CEO Frazer Callingham led the celebrations.
The black-tie evening was warm, and the event spread from the forward deck to the main lounge where revelers were entertained by swing band Natty Congeroo & the Flames of Rhythm.
Brand-agnostic Starboard has in its portfolio hotels that wave the flags of Marriott International, Accor, IHG Hotels & Resorts and Best Western International, and attendees from all four were on board.
The HMS Belfast is the most famous ship on the River Thames in Central London, permanently docked on the south side of the river close to Tower Bridge.
Technically, I read online, a “town-class light cruiser,” the former Royal Navy ship saw action in World War II, including in the D-Day Landings, and in the Korean War before being decommissioned in 1971 and docked in its current site.
Before that move, the plan was to have it scrapped, but a private trust saved it, the first United Kingdom naval vessel to be saved since HMS Victory, Lord Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, which took place in 1805.
It is now technically part of London’s Imperial War Museum.
Here’s to the next two decades of Starboard.