To glimpse the Grand Hotel Scarborough standing watch above Britain’s North Sea is to immediately understand how it got its name. When it first opened, in 1867, the Grand was the largest brick structure in all of Europe, a cathedral for wealthy Victorian holiday-makers who wanted to sample the mineral-rich waters of this North Yorkshire resort.
Churchill stayed there. One of the Brontës died on the site (before the hotel was built). Hitler, harboring dreams of making it his own private palace, was rumored to have threatened any Luftwaffe pilot who dared touch it with an instant court martial.
