Raffles Hotel

Raffles Hotel is a luxury hotel at 1 Beach Road in Singapore, established by the Armenian Sarkies brothers in 1887 and named for the British colonial official Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore. Designed by the architect Regent Alfred John Bidwell of the firm Swan and Maclaren, the hotel grew from a ten-room bungalow into a landmark of colonial architecture, and in 1899 it became the first hotel in the region fitted with electric lighting. Renamed the Syonan Ryokan during the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1942 to 1945, the hotel underwent a 160 million dollar restoration between 1989 and 1991 and a further renovation completed in 2019, and it was designated a National Monument of Singapore in 1987. Its Long Bar is credited as the birthplace of the Singapore Sling cocktail, invented there by the bartender Ngiam Tong Boon.