Publisher's Synopsis
This story starts in Queen Victoria's reign, around the time a new road was built in Scarborough's South Cliff area, in commemoration of the Queen's Jubilee. It was called Avenue Victoria. With the new road complete, a first, imposing property was built at the seaward end of the new Avenue. It is not known whether this building was built as a hotel but certainly between the mid-1920s and at least 1938 it was trading as Hotel Montrosa. Many years later in 1951 Scarborough Soroptimists took over the building and successfully turned it into 'an hotel for older people'. They called their home 'Montrosa'. But the story meanders here and there, well outside the boundaries of Montrosa. Eventually the building was ageing and the Soroptimists made plans to sell and replace Montrosa with a newly designed, purpose-built building, also to be called Montrosa. This was opened in 2001 - 50 years from the time they had opened their first Montrosa. The old building sold and was extended and converted into modern flats, now called Christine House. The author lived in one of those flats, overlooking the new Montrosa, and, in later years when he was less sprightly, he moved into Montrosa as a resident. He was inquisitive as to the background of the old building, its history and how some world famous people became involved and his research led to this book.
