The newly-opened Langham Hotel, is a truly special hotel and I was fortunate to have a guided tour from MARCOM manager extraordinaire, Tony Wang. Renovated from the famous Yangtze Hotel, an Art Deco icon from the 1920’s, the Langham is the only hotel I’ve visited in China that has a shot of being something truly extraordinary and timeless.

It’s a boutique hotel and the space stays true to the intimacy of the original. The lobby is decked in rich Art Deco patterns, the walls are inset with copper sheets burnished to a reflective sheen, the bathroom consist of individual powder rooms. The ceiling of the open lobby is a gorgeous work of stained glass art, an homage to the church next door. A twisting staircase leads down from the second-floor lounge. It’s covered by carpet that cleverly looks like it’s already a hundred years old. Every evening at precisely 7:05pm a qipao-clad singer descends it, belting out a classic Shanghai tune.

The original 180 rooms have been knocked down to 96. Most of the rooms have balconies. The rooms give almost 1/3 of their space over to sumptuous bathroom suites. The brightly lit hallways are adorned with framed artifacts from old Shanghai. My favorites were the beaded purses which were the LV bags of their day. This is a hotel with a lot of history and a lot of ghosts. The famed ‘20s actress Hu Die was a regular here (the Die Lounge is named after her). It is rumored that her contemporary, the uber-famous actress Ruan Lingyu, had drinks here the night before her suicide. Tony says the wedding business is booming with people clamoring to get married in the same hotel where their parents and grandparents got hitched before the war.

The opening of the Langham also signals a renaissance for Old Shanghai. In the next year the Peninsula Hotel will open on the Bund (the first newly-built property on the Bund allowed in the last 60 years). Then the Peace Hotel will re-open under Fairmont management. Late next year the Waldorf-Astoria will be born where the famed Shanghai Club used to be.

These spaces are not just homages to Shanghai chic. They aim to be recreations of the Gilded Age. Places where the ghosts of the past can dance again.