Queen Latifah and the Grandhotel Pupp Star in ‘Last Holiday’

A five-star lodging, the sprawling Neo-Baroque style property as it exists today was constructed in 1907, though its origins actually date back to 1701 when Karlovy Vary mayor Anton Deiml commissioned a ballroom to be built on the site where the hotel now stands. The space, named Saxon Hall, soon became the stomping grounds of the rich and famous of the day. Seven years later, a subsequent mayor commissioned another venue to be built on neighboring land. As described on the Grandhotel Pupp website, “Both halls, which were perpendicular to each other in the bend of the valley of the Teplá River, together with the later built House U Božího oka, became the basis of today’s Grandhotel Pupp, whose current building has replaced them all.”

That current building was designed by Austrian architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, who were tasked with “unifying the hotel’s facades,” a process that culminated in 1910 after almost three years of construction.

Featuring 228 rooms (111 in the Riverside building and an additional 117 in the Parkside building), Grandhotel Pupp is a treasure trove of sweeping public spaces, gilded embellishments and elaborate architectural detailing.

Grandhotel Pupp, lobby bar

At the center of it all is a dramatic grand lobby boasting a coved glass ceiling with golden angels and a glittering crystal chandelier that is so beautiful it is said to have the power to bring grown women to tears (according to Georgia, at least).

Other tony amenities include a whopping five restaurants and lounges (as well as 24-hour room service), business facilities, a conference center, a pool, a gym, a casino and a spa (though it is not the spa seen in “Last Holiday” – that was a mixture of both a studio-built set and the Nové Lázně Health Spa Hotel in nearby Marianske Lazne).

With ornate ballrooms that look like something out of a movie, myriad arched French doors and ceilings towering 18, 24 and 36 feet above the marbled flooring below, Grandhotel Pupp is truly like no other! So it is no wonder the place has been a haunt of the elite ever since it was initially constructed over 300 years ago. As described in a 2003 National Post article, “Almost every famous person of the 18th and 19th centuries stayed here at some point – Bach, Goethe, Freud and Napoleon, to name a few. And when a lounge is named Beethoven, it is not just an affectation: The composer was a guest in 1812.” More recently, the lodging has accomodated such luminaries as Edward Norton, Helen Mirren, Johnny Depp, Richard Gere, John Travolta, Robert Redford, Renée Zellweger, Salma Hayek, John Malkovich, Laura Dern and Harvey Keitel through the International Film Festival Karlovy Vary, which it hosts annually.

Though undeniably luxurious, rates start at a very reasonable $135 per night during the property’s off-season, which is when the cast and crew of “Last Holiday” descended upon it.

According to the production notes, the “Last Holiday” team spent six weeks filming on the premises, with the hotel serving as both a main location as well as the group’s lodging during the extensive shoot. Executive producer Richard Vane explained, “January and February are low season and the Pupp was undergoing some renovations, so we were able to make arrangements to basically take over the hotel. My favorite part of the deal is that the travel time for the crew is the two minutes it takes them to get from whatever floor they’re on to the lobby.”

Arnold strove to give the locale a fairy tale feel for the film, a concept that came from director Wang. As the production designer stated in a behind-the-scenes segment featured on the movie’s DVD, “Wayne’s ideas about the look had a lot to do with the character of Georgia and what the environments and sets did to her as the character, how she fit in or how she didn’t fit into where she was from, to where she lived. And one thing he talked about first, and it really stuck with me, was saying, ‘This is kind of a fairy tale.’ And that led me to think about where we’re going in the Czech Republic – that these places should feel like, kind of, those fairy tale places we’ve all imagined.”

Arnold certainly delivered on the notion! Grandhotel Pupp is nothing short of enchanted onscreen. As Georgia says upon arriving at the property and taking in the gorgeous surroundings, “Where have I been living?”

Grandhotel PUPP – jaro 2021

“Last Holiday” made extensive use of the hotel, with the mirrored Grandrestaurant perhaps the most recognizable of the areas featured, standing in for the eatery run by Chef Didier (Gérard Depardieu), where Georgia regularly avails herself of every single daily special. The lodging’s kitchen also appears as Didier’s workplace, where he creates his various culinary masterpieces.

Grandhotel PUPP – jaro 2021

Don’t go looking for the opulent presidential suite where Georgia stays anywhere on the premises, though. Her room was a set created by Arnold on a soundstage in Prague, as was the suite occupied by fellow guest Matthew Kragen (Timothy Hutton) and the window ledge that figures in the movie’s climax. Of the latter, Arnold said, “Nobody wanted to play that long of a scene out in the cold and that high up!”

The real rooms at Grandhotel Pupp leave quite a bit to be desired, as far as reality versus what appeared onscreen goes. While indisputebly nice, the actual accommodations are simpler, more subdued and far less extravagant than their movie counterparts.

“Last Holiday” is not Grandhotel Pupp’s sole cameo. The location also appears as Montenegro’s Hotel Splendide, where James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) stay in the 2006 film “Casino Royale.”

And the property served as the inspiration for the exterior design of the fictional Grand Budapest Hotel in Wes Anderson’s 2014 movie of the same name.