By Ashley Pearson
It takes half an hour to cross the pool (by gondola, naturally). The spa has a room full of real snow. The bathrooms have gold-plated mirrors on the FLOOR. As Sharon, Paris and Mariah open Europe's most shameless temple of excess, can anyone afford to stay there?
Sharon Stone strides confidently onto the stage a few feet in front of me, and you can hear an appreciative murmur pass through the well-heeled crowd. Dressed in Roberto Cavalli couture, the 51-year-old star looks thinner than ever and with not a blonde hair out of place.
She is here in Antalya, Turkey, for the launch of what's being billed as the grandest and most expensive hotel in Europe - the Mardan Palace. As the normally articulate actress begins her hosting duties, she stumbles over a word on the teleprompter.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Room with a view: The vast pool which you can traverse by gondola if a swim is too much effort"]
[/caption]
'What is that? I can't pronounce this!' she shouts to the crowd, which is teeming with Russian and Turkish dignitaries. The word is Azerbaijan. Clearly embarrassed, Stone immediately and inexplicably yells out 'Chaka Khan! 'Chaka Khan!' in a singsong voice to the startled crowd. Oh dear.
It's just the first of a string of surreal moments of comedy provided by the motley crew of A-list stars who have been paid a king's ransom to come and tell the world how wonderful this new monument to excess really is. Frankly, the Mardan Palace [Technically in Eurasia as Turkey has not made it into Europe yet] must be seen to be believed. Russian billionaire Telman Ismailov spent more than £1billion on this project - and it shows.
Champagne costs £25 a glass, toilets are remote-controlled, guests select linen and pillow firmness from a 'pillow menu' alongside each bed and the private beach has been created from 9,000 tons of the silkiest white sand imported from Egypt. The hotel itself - where suites cost up to £11,500 a night - is a temple to bling, fitted out with 2,500 tons of gold, 500,000 crystals and 23,000 square metres of Italian marble.
The pool is a full five acres of sparkling blue water, across which guests can take gondola rides that take 30 minutes. In the middle of the pool sits a sunken aquarium with 2,400 fish, so you can literally 'swim with the fishes' (including sharks) - albeit on the other side of a thick wall of glass.
Meanwhile, the waterside Italian restaurant (one of 11 on site) is stocked with Hermés crockery worth £1.35million.
Of course, if you're going to spend a vast fortune building a place like this, you might as well start with a bang, which is why Ismailov chose to throw an opening party to beat them all.
He's flown in superstar songstress Mariah Carey to perform (at a rumoured cost of £1 million) along with Tom Jones as the opening act. They are both on hand to entertain VIP guests including Ms Stone, Richard Gere and Paris Hilton, who have all been paid to attend and flown over on private jets for a blacktie party set to last for three days.
Having bagged my own invitation, I arrive to find a lobby the size of a football pitch, lit up by the biggest crystal chandelier I've ever seen. Anxious to get myself looking suitably glamorous before I meet the stars, I head up to my suite, which is filled with plush velvets in walnut, gold and plum tones.
The bed is massive and the gold shower head is the size of a barrel. In fact, most of the fittings are gold-plated, including the mirrors all along my bathroom floor (which, I have to say, offer a rather disconcerting view when you are wandering round after a shower).
After a trip to the 12,000 sq ft spa, where I can choose to have a 24-carat gold-leaf body wrap or take a bath in champagne extracts, I head for the VIP wing. I enter through a waterfall magically parted with a secret key and have a peek at the 'snow room', where real snow is manufactured so you can roll around in the stuff when you've staggered out of the sauna. Who on earth thought of that?
Having decided that snow is best left to the Eskimos, I decide it's time to go and meet the celebrities who are being corralled together for what proves to be one of the most cringe-worthy press conferences I've ever witnessed. In a room full of the international press, I find the singer Seal, Italian actress Monica Bellucci, Gere, Stone and Tom Jones. Not exactly natural bedfellows, if you'll excuse the phrase.
When Ismailov is pressed by a German reporter about how much he's paying all of these celebrity 'guests', there follows at least two minutes of awkward silence before the owner asserts: 'These are my friends. I have invited them here as my guests.' Unfortunately, this cosy all-pals-together image is shattered shortly afterwards when Seal mispronounces Ismailov's name.
Gere is easily the most gracious of the group. He is polite and affable to everyone and greets Stone with what looks like genuine affection. However, he is quick to distance himself from his peers. As soon as he's given the opportunity to speak, he loudly and publicly announces that he is here only because Ismailov has made a substantial donation to the Gere Foundation, devoted to assisting the people of Tibet. This declaration makes the other celebrities on the panel visibly uncomfortable - presumably because they have no cause to mention other than lining their own pockets.
The increasingly ubiquitous Stone bristles when pressed by one British journalist about her seeming fondness for 'hotel openings', given her paid appearance here as well as at the recently opened One & Only hotel in Cape Town.
'My fondness for hotels only extends to my dislike of sleeping on the ground when I travel for business,' she snaps.
If Gere is the most gracious, Stone is the most affected. She tells me that she likes the Mardan Palace because it 'feels like home'. Ummmm... whose home would that be, I wonder? Certainly not my flat in London.
Mariah Carey doesn't even bother to show up for her planned appearance at the press gathering, or the one-on-one interviews set up for afterwards, prompting several television crews to curse her audibly. She decides to stay in her room for what appears to be an extra four hours of hair and make-up.
Paris Hilton, meanwhile, arrives late and refuses to talk to anyone. The photographers are then called and asked to assemble before the evening's festivities because she has agreed to a photo session - which is a surprise to precisely no one.
After six years of marriage, Gere still seems to be madly in love with his actress wife Carey Lowell. The pair, who had not seen each other for ten days because of work, appear to be using the weekend as a second honeymoon: every time I see them, one of them is grabbing the other's bottom.
So far so surreal, but what's even funnier is that though the stunning Bellucci has been flown out, no one seems to want to interview her. The organisers are practically pleading with various TV crews to say hello to her. The problem is that her English is shockingly bad, and no one knows quite what to ask her.
Clearly more comfortable singing than chatting, Tom Jones is happy to talk to anyone and everyone, but rather awkward at actually coming up with anything to say. At least he's still got his swagger, even at 68; when I ask him for a photo, he pulls me in close and growls something suggestive in my ear.
In a slightly embarrassing twist, the Russian and Turkish press corps are continually mistaking me for Carey, a fact which I don't find entirely complimentary. But then nor, I suppose, would she.
As I enter various rooms, assembled journalists and photographers begin calling out 'Mariah!' and taking my photo en masse. As flashbulbs blaze, an interpreter has to shout over them to assure them that I am, in fact, just a nobody. When Paris Hilton finally does hit the red carpet, she creates havoc. Watching her pose for photographers is something to behold.
It's a carefully choreographed dance in which she never misses a step. She is dressed in Barbie pink, and although we are warned she 'will not be talking', she does manage to shout out that she 'loves Turkey'. As she and I chat at the evening bash, she even tells me she loves my dress and that 'it's hot'. I begin to warm to her natural enthusiasm.
It also appears that Stone is in a much better mood this evening than she was a few hours ago at the press-conference. Smiling and gracious, she tells me she loves my last-season River Island leopard-print sequined evening bag (which cost me £30). When I tell her I was worried it might be a little over the top, she breezes: 'Honey, as far as I'm concerned leopard print is a neutral.'
The party itself is a jaw-dropping extravaganza of excess. The fireworks display goes on for nearly an hour, and 600 party guests are treated to Cirque de Soleil-style acrobats on tightropes suspended hundreds of feet overhead. Paragliders soar in the sky above, each bearing one letter of the hotel's name, while dancers perform in giant clear glass bubbles on the surface of the enormous swimming pool.
After an eight-course dinner, washed down with £200-a-bottle Chateau Mouton Rothschild red wine, Jones gives a rousing performance that gets the crowd on its feet.
Carey, who finally shows up to sing at around 11pm, is unhappy with her on-stage wind machine, complaining loudly from the stage that it is 'either a monsoon or a dry wind' and that it is making her hair 'curl up'.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="Lighting up the sky: A stunning fireworks display wowed VIP guests at the opening party on Saturday"]
[/caption]
The singer, who wears a black strapless dress, is decked out in what appears to be at least £10million in diamonds, including a gigantic five-carat ring in the shape of a huge butterfly which must surely have cost tens of thousands of pounds and which her 'generous host Mr Telman' has gifted her tonight as an additional thank-you.
Infamously concerned with protecting her precious voice, La Carey is clearly unsettled by all the cigarette smoke drifting up into the night, plaintively wailing from her perch that 'there's an awful lot of smoke out there right now'.
Afterwards, the crowd reassembles in the aptly named Monkey Bar - there is a monkey enclosure attached where the animals frolic while the Euro-pop is belted out. Hilton dutifully makes her paid-for appearance, dirty-dancing with boyfriend Doug Reinhardt for an hour or so before heading off to bed.
She seems to be tired and grouchy at this point and keeps a wide berth between her and other clubgoers.
By 3am, guests are heading back through the lobby, where Carey's back-up singers are now leading an impromptu soul music sing-along at one of its many pianos. So will this hotel live up to its sumptuous opening party and become a mecca for the European super-rich?
I'm no economist, but as the world slides deeper into recession, surely this is not the perfect time to be opening such a place. But then, perhaps the rich are not affected in the same way as the rest of us.
One seasoned Russian journalist is not so sure, though. 'Rich Russians go to France or England if they have the money - not Turkey,' he says. 'It's too much like our own country; the lifestyle and the people. Who will come here?'
Maybe he's being too negative. I have to admit that by the time I check out, I've decided perhaps I could get used to the hilariously lavish surroundings - especially once the stars have packed up and gone home.
It takes half an hour to cross the pool (by gondola, naturally). The spa has a room full of real snow. The bathrooms have gold-plated mirrors on the FLOOR. As Sharon, Paris and Mariah open Europe's most shameless temple of excess, can anyone afford to stay there?
Sharon Stone strides confidently onto the stage a few feet in front of me, and you can hear an appreciative murmur pass through the well-heeled crowd. Dressed in Roberto Cavalli couture, the 51-year-old star looks thinner than ever and with not a blonde hair out of place.
She is here in Antalya, Turkey, for the launch of what's being billed as the grandest and most expensive hotel in Europe - the Mardan Palace. As the normally articulate actress begins her hosting duties, she stumbles over a word on the teleprompter.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Room with a view: The vast pool which you can traverse by gondola if a swim is too much effort"]
[/caption]'What is that? I can't pronounce this!' she shouts to the crowd, which is teeming with Russian and Turkish dignitaries. The word is Azerbaijan. Clearly embarrassed, Stone immediately and inexplicably yells out 'Chaka Khan! 'Chaka Khan!' in a singsong voice to the startled crowd. Oh dear.
It's just the first of a string of surreal moments of comedy provided by the motley crew of A-list stars who have been paid a king's ransom to come and tell the world how wonderful this new monument to excess really is. Frankly, the Mardan Palace [Technically in Eurasia as Turkey has not made it into Europe yet] must be seen to be believed. Russian billionaire Telman Ismailov spent more than £1billion on this project - and it shows.
Champagne costs £25 a glass, toilets are remote-controlled, guests select linen and pillow firmness from a 'pillow menu' alongside each bed and the private beach has been created from 9,000 tons of the silkiest white sand imported from Egypt. The hotel itself - where suites cost up to £11,500 a night - is a temple to bling, fitted out with 2,500 tons of gold, 500,000 crystals and 23,000 square metres of Italian marble.
The pool is a full five acres of sparkling blue water, across which guests can take gondola rides that take 30 minutes. In the middle of the pool sits a sunken aquarium with 2,400 fish, so you can literally 'swim with the fishes' (including sharks) - albeit on the other side of a thick wall of glass.
Meanwhile, the waterside Italian restaurant (one of 11 on site) is stocked with Hermés crockery worth £1.35million.
Better than the Hilton: Attendees at the opening of the Mardan Palace Hotel included American actress Sharon Stone heiress Paris Hilton
Of course, if you're going to spend a vast fortune building a place like this, you might as well start with a bang, which is why Ismailov chose to throw an opening party to beat them all.
He's flown in superstar songstress Mariah Carey to perform (at a rumoured cost of £1 million) along with Tom Jones as the opening act. They are both on hand to entertain VIP guests including Ms Stone, Richard Gere and Paris Hilton, who have all been paid to attend and flown over on private jets for a blacktie party set to last for three days.
Having bagged my own invitation, I arrive to find a lobby the size of a football pitch, lit up by the biggest crystal chandelier I've ever seen. Anxious to get myself looking suitably glamorous before I meet the stars, I head up to my suite, which is filled with plush velvets in walnut, gold and plum tones.
The bed is massive and the gold shower head is the size of a barrel. In fact, most of the fittings are gold-plated, including the mirrors all along my bathroom floor (which, I have to say, offer a rather disconcerting view when you are wandering round after a shower).
After a trip to the 12,000 sq ft spa, where I can choose to have a 24-carat gold-leaf body wrap or take a bath in champagne extracts, I head for the VIP wing. I enter through a waterfall magically parted with a secret key and have a peek at the 'snow room', where real snow is manufactured so you can roll around in the stuff when you've staggered out of the sauna. Who on earth thought of that?
Divas with style: Mariah Carey, who was reportedly paid £1million to perform, and Monica Bellucci
Having decided that snow is best left to the Eskimos, I decide it's time to go and meet the celebrities who are being corralled together for what proves to be one of the most cringe-worthy press conferences I've ever witnessed. In a room full of the international press, I find the singer Seal, Italian actress Monica Bellucci, Gere, Stone and Tom Jones. Not exactly natural bedfellows, if you'll excuse the phrase.
When Ismailov is pressed by a German reporter about how much he's paying all of these celebrity 'guests', there follows at least two minutes of awkward silence before the owner asserts: 'These are my friends. I have invited them here as my guests.' Unfortunately, this cosy all-pals-together image is shattered shortly afterwards when Seal mispronounces Ismailov's name.
Gere is easily the most gracious of the group. He is polite and affable to everyone and greets Stone with what looks like genuine affection. However, he is quick to distance himself from his peers. As soon as he's given the opportunity to speak, he loudly and publicly announces that he is here only because Ismailov has made a substantial donation to the Gere Foundation, devoted to assisting the people of Tibet. This declaration makes the other celebrities on the panel visibly uncomfortable - presumably because they have no cause to mention other than lining their own pockets.
The increasingly ubiquitous Stone bristles when pressed by one British journalist about her seeming fondness for 'hotel openings', given her paid appearance here as well as at the recently opened One & Only hotel in Cape Town.
'My fondness for hotels only extends to my dislike of sleeping on the ground when I travel for business,' she snaps.
If Gere is the most gracious, Stone is the most affected. She tells me that she likes the Mardan Palace because it 'feels like home'. Ummmm... whose home would that be, I wonder? Certainly not my flat in London.
Still in love: Actor Richard Gere with wife Cary Lowell and, right, Welsh crooner Tom Jones poses with Daily Mail journalist Ashley Pearson
Mariah Carey doesn't even bother to show up for her planned appearance at the press gathering, or the one-on-one interviews set up for afterwards, prompting several television crews to curse her audibly. She decides to stay in her room for what appears to be an extra four hours of hair and make-up.
Paris Hilton, meanwhile, arrives late and refuses to talk to anyone. The photographers are then called and asked to assemble before the evening's festivities because she has agreed to a photo session - which is a surprise to precisely no one.
After six years of marriage, Gere still seems to be madly in love with his actress wife Carey Lowell. The pair, who had not seen each other for ten days because of work, appear to be using the weekend as a second honeymoon: every time I see them, one of them is grabbing the other's bottom.
So far so surreal, but what's even funnier is that though the stunning Bellucci has been flown out, no one seems to want to interview her. The organisers are practically pleading with various TV crews to say hello to her. The problem is that her English is shockingly bad, and no one knows quite what to ask her.
Clearly more comfortable singing than chatting, Tom Jones is happy to talk to anyone and everyone, but rather awkward at actually coming up with anything to say. At least he's still got his swagger, even at 68; when I ask him for a photo, he pulls me in close and growls something suggestive in my ear.
In a slightly embarrassing twist, the Russian and Turkish press corps are continually mistaking me for Carey, a fact which I don't find entirely complimentary. But then nor, I suppose, would she.
As I enter various rooms, assembled journalists and photographers begin calling out 'Mariah!' and taking my photo en masse. As flashbulbs blaze, an interpreter has to shout over them to assure them that I am, in fact, just a nobody. When Paris Hilton finally does hit the red carpet, she creates havoc. Watching her pose for photographers is something to behold.
Fish supper: One of the 11 restaurants, left, and, right, gold drips from every surface
It's a carefully choreographed dance in which she never misses a step. She is dressed in Barbie pink, and although we are warned she 'will not be talking', she does manage to shout out that she 'loves Turkey'. As she and I chat at the evening bash, she even tells me she loves my dress and that 'it's hot'. I begin to warm to her natural enthusiasm.
It also appears that Stone is in a much better mood this evening than she was a few hours ago at the press-conference. Smiling and gracious, she tells me she loves my last-season River Island leopard-print sequined evening bag (which cost me £30). When I tell her I was worried it might be a little over the top, she breezes: 'Honey, as far as I'm concerned leopard print is a neutral.'
The party itself is a jaw-dropping extravaganza of excess. The fireworks display goes on for nearly an hour, and 600 party guests are treated to Cirque de Soleil-style acrobats on tightropes suspended hundreds of feet overhead. Paragliders soar in the sky above, each bearing one letter of the hotel's name, while dancers perform in giant clear glass bubbles on the surface of the enormous swimming pool.
After an eight-course dinner, washed down with £200-a-bottle Chateau Mouton Rothschild red wine, Jones gives a rousing performance that gets the crowd on its feet.
Carey, who finally shows up to sing at around 11pm, is unhappy with her on-stage wind machine, complaining loudly from the stage that it is 'either a monsoon or a dry wind' and that it is making her hair 'curl up'.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="Lighting up the sky: A stunning fireworks display wowed VIP guests at the opening party on Saturday"]
[/caption]The singer, who wears a black strapless dress, is decked out in what appears to be at least £10million in diamonds, including a gigantic five-carat ring in the shape of a huge butterfly which must surely have cost tens of thousands of pounds and which her 'generous host Mr Telman' has gifted her tonight as an additional thank-you.
Infamously concerned with protecting her precious voice, La Carey is clearly unsettled by all the cigarette smoke drifting up into the night, plaintively wailing from her perch that 'there's an awful lot of smoke out there right now'.
Afterwards, the crowd reassembles in the aptly named Monkey Bar - there is a monkey enclosure attached where the animals frolic while the Euro-pop is belted out. Hilton dutifully makes her paid-for appearance, dirty-dancing with boyfriend Doug Reinhardt for an hour or so before heading off to bed.
She seems to be tired and grouchy at this point and keeps a wide berth between her and other clubgoers.
By 3am, guests are heading back through the lobby, where Carey's back-up singers are now leading an impromptu soul music sing-along at one of its many pianos. So will this hotel live up to its sumptuous opening party and become a mecca for the European super-rich?
I'm no economist, but as the world slides deeper into recession, surely this is not the perfect time to be opening such a place. But then, perhaps the rich are not affected in the same way as the rest of us.
One seasoned Russian journalist is not so sure, though. 'Rich Russians go to France or England if they have the money - not Turkey,' he says. 'It's too much like our own country; the lifestyle and the people. Who will come here?'
Maybe he's being too negative. I have to admit that by the time I check out, I've decided perhaps I could get used to the hilariously lavish surroundings - especially once the stars have packed up and gone home.
[...] Mocona wrote an interesting post today onThe Conference » Blog Archive » Hotel Hubris : THE most expensive b…/bHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
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