Spotlight: 5-Star Romanian Hotel Reopens as a Hilton

Romania’s most famous hotel, the Athenee Palace, riddled with bullets and damaged by fire in the 1989 revolution, reopened as a Hilton hotel, after a $50-million face lift and with new management. It has taken three years to return Romania’s only five-star hotel to its former glamour. Beverly Hills-based Hilton Hotels Corp. signed a deal in 1993 to operate the 272-room hotel, built in 1914. It is owned by a joint venture of two Romanians, who control 52%, and three French companies.