Tintagel Hotel (Rosmead Walawwa)

Tintagel Hotel Colombo
Tintagel Hotel, formerly known as Rosmead Walawwa, is a star-class boutique hotel located in Cinnamon Gardens in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

History
The Tintagel mansion was constructed in 1929 by Dr Lucian de Zilwa following a design by Homi Billimoria (1901-1956), an architect of Parsee origin (Tennakoon, 2018). During World War II (1939-1945), the mansion was occupied by the British military and after that, Zilwa decided to sell it due to financial reasons (Tennakoon, 2018). Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike (1862-1946) purchased the property for his son S.W.R.D. Bandaranayake (1899-1959), the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1956 to 1959 and his wife, Sirimavo Bandaranayake [(1916-2000) Tennakoon, 2018]. Sirimavo became the world's first female prime minister in 1960 and the longest-serving prime minister of the country after the murder of her husband, S.W.R.D, Bandaranayake on the verandah of this mansion on 26 September 1959 (Tennakoon, 2018). The Tintagel was also the childhood home of Sirimavo's younger daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga, the first female President of Sri Lanka (Tennakoon, 2018).

In the 1960s, the mansion was used by the ambassadors of Burma and Egypt (Tennakoon, 2018). Sirimavo resided at this mansion until her demise in 2000. In 2005, the property was leased out by its last occupant, Sunethra Bandaranayake, the elder daughter of Sirimavo, to the owner of Paradise Road to convert it into a private boutique hotel, comprising 10 individually designed suites (Tennakoon, 2018). Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall stayed at this hotel during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo in November 2013.

Tintagel Hotel, Colombo
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Attribution
1) Tintagel Hotel, Colombo by Andrew Hall is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

References
1) Tennakoon, P.M., 2018. Dwelling on the colonial dichotomy: comparison of elite colonial dwellings in Colombo, Sri Lanka and Brisbane, Australia. A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Queensland, School of Architecture. pp.78-84.

Location Map
This page was last updated on 15 October 2022
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