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Angela and Domenic Spina outside Olivelli’s restaurant and hotel in Store Street, Bloomsbury |
Show’s over? Stage stars’ favourite hotel faces the axe
IT has played host to Bob Hope and fed the Marx Brothers, entertained Stephane Grappelli and put Duke Ellington to bed.
Now, 75 years after Olivelli’s Hotel and Restaurant in Store Street, Bloomsbury, opened its doors to the stars of stage and screen, it is expecting a less welcome guest – the wrecker’s ball.
The hotel’s current owners, the Spina family, claim proposed lease hikes and dilapidation fees will “strong-arm” them out of their business when their lease expires in December this year.
It is believed the property’s owners, Bedford Estates, intend to build luxury flats on the site as part of a major redevelopment of the area when the leases of 15 Store Street properties expire in December.
Domenic Spina, 48, who manages the hotel with his 83-year-old mother, Angela, said: “For the past two years we’ve been in limbo. You can’t forward-plan or bring the place up to the standard you would like because you might not be here in six months.
“We were told we were at the wrong end of the market. They didn’t think the hotel is right in this street, even though it’s been here since the Second World War. It’s actually our home. To have that taken away is hard.”
Olivelli’s was founded in 1934 by Sicilian couple Rita and Enrico Olivelli.
It soon became a haunt of the showbusiness fraternity, from stuntmen and showgirls to the celebrity strongman Charles Atlas and the film star Peter Lorre.
The Spinas took over the hotel in 1961 after Mr Olivelli’s death. It is the longest-surviving business on the street.
The Bloomsbury Service Station, which was the oldest petrol station in London, closed last June.
Mr Spina said: “It’s one of the few communities left in the West End. We’re a small family business. Why destroy a lovely part of London? Slowly, bit by bit, they are stripping the soul of this community. I know it’s money, but in the end it’s greed.”
The family say Bedford Estates has told them to pay a £125,000 dilapidation fee if they stay until the end of their tenancy or leave early and pay less.
Other businesses have apparently received similar letters.
Mark de Rivaz, the steward for The Bedford Estates, declined to answer questions about Olivelli’s or potential Store Street redevelopment plans on the grounds of “commercial confidentiality” |
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