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Taj Connemara, Chennai is a five-star hotel in Chennai, India. It is a heritage hotel in Chennai. The hotel is considered the oldest hotel in the city. The property of Taj Connemara was originally a house bought by John Binny from The Nawab of Arcot in 1799.[3] The property was later bought by T. Somasundara Mudalyar[3] and built as the Imperial Hotel in 1854 under the proprietorship of Triplicane Rathinavelu Mudaliar, renamed Albany in 1886 when it was leased to two other Mudaliar brothers, and re-established as The Connemara in 1890,[4] named after the then Madras Governor during 1881-1886, Robert Bourke, baron of Connemara, a rural area in Counties Galway and Mayo in the West of Ireland,[5] later becoming a Spencer\\s hotel. In 1891, Eugene Oakshott, owner of Spencer\\s, then a little shop near Anna Circle, bought the hotel and its nine acres to build a showroom. Oakshott wanted to give Spencer\\s a facelift, so he decided to build one of Asia\\s biggest departmental store. In the 1930s, James Stiven, director of Spencer\\s, modernised the hotel starting in 1934, and the modernisation was completed in 1937.[6] It sported an art deco look when it was reopened in 1937.[7][8] According to a hotel press release, the 1937 renovation, estimated at ₹575,000, boasted about its \\cool refreshing air delivered through the newest air conditioning apparatus.\\[3] According to the first published tariff of the hotel, the cost of a room on single occupancy was ₹10 with breakfast and that of a room with all meals was ₹17.80.[3] Spencer\\s leased the Connemara to the Taj Group in 1974.[9] The tower block and linking pool was designed by architect Geoffrey Bawa in 1974, and the work was completed in 1977.[3] The deluxe wing of the hotel was destroyed almost completely in the \\Friday the Thirteenth\\ fire in February 1981, which broke out in the Spencer\\s building. However, the main building of the hotel remained unharmed because of the high-rise wall in between the two buildings.[3] In 1984, the Taj Group of Hotels acquired the hotel for a 100-year lease from the Spencer\\s Group.[3][10] The hotel saw two renovations in 1990 and 1995.[3] The hotel was again renovated in 2004 and 2005, when the hotel was re-designed with the launch of the loud Distil bar and chic pan Asian restaurant Hip Asia,[3] It is also when 65 rooms in the hotel were renovated.[11] In 2008, historian S. Muthiah wrote a book on the heritage of the hotel, A Tradition of Madras that is Chennai—The Taj Connemara,[2] which reproduces an advertisement from 1880 that states the hotel, called The Imperial Hotel then, promises \\extensive premises… cool and fitted with every convenience\\ and wines from the \\celebrated house of Messrs. McDowell Co.\\[10] The book gives a rare collection of photographs of old Madras roads, buildings, interiors of the hotels and the hotel\\s tariff since 1939.[6] According to Muthiah, the B