Lady Gaga played the piano: the grand hotel that's seen it all

Barack Obama stayed in the Presidential Suite, as did the Sultan of Brunei. The Queen Mother once took tea in the Tea Lounge, Lady Gaga played the grand piano and Nick Cave declared it one of his favourite hotels, staying there several times. Olivia Newton-John, Pink, John Cleese and Billy Connolly have been guests, as have Crowded House, Henry Winkler and a vast array of famous authors.

And, back when it opened in 1988, there was the party to end all parties - the kind people were upset not to have been invited to.

When the Hyatt Hotel Canberra opened its doors in 1988, nearly 850 guests were there to watch Gough Whitlam and Sir John Gorton declare it officially open, before tucking into 10,000 canapes, giant mounds of seafood, pheasant, and rib eye beef.

The guests also made quick work of 750 bottles of Bollinger, 12 cases of Tyrell pinot chardonnay, four cases of Mt Helen cabernet, and many hundreds of cocktails, all carefully documented by The Canberra Times the following day.

The elegant Hotel Canberra, as it had been known for the previous six decades, had been all about cocktails, and the new management were keen to stick with tradition, serving up martinis, Manhattans and, in a nod to the 80s, strawberry daiquiris - at least 400 of which flew off the bar the minute they were shaken.

It was a big moment for Canberra, getting its first five-star hotel, and seeing a grand old dame of the early days reborn into something gorgeous.

But the Hotel Canberra had always been gorgeous; there was a time, deep in Canberra's earliest days, when things were built to last, and beauty was important.

When Parliament decreed, in January 1921, that Canberra needed a hotel for parliamentarians and visitors, it took barely four years to make this a reality. Four years to build a hotel that would last the next 100? Time must have truly have been of the essence, once upon a time.

Designed by Commonwealth architect John Smith Murdoch, who later drew up plans for Old Parliament House, the hotel was based on the original design for the old Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, now destroyed.

The contract to build what was planned early on as a "bungalow hostel" was taken up by Scottish migrant builders Howie & Son, who also won tenders to build the Mount Stromlo Observatory, JB Young in Kingston, 20 workmen's cottages near the Causeway and, later, the Bondi Pavilion in Sydney.

By the time it opened, Hostel No.1, as it was originally called, had blown its budget - the cost was said to have risen to more than £140,000 (about $14 million in today's currency) to which "at least £70,000" in fittings was to be added.

Not everyone was happy with such government-funded luxury; certain Victorian federal MPs expressed indignation at the extravagant scale of the "Hostel de Luxe". Another Melbourne resident was reported as saying that "not even the most exclusive hotels of Melbourne or Sydney could outshine the magnificence of No 1 Hostel. Costly carpets into which the feet sink, luxurious hangings and wall decorations, elaborate furnishings and superb bathrooms for every suite, greet the eyes of visiting taxpayers. Every bed is covered with an expensive hair mattress, and the billiard room appointments are said to be without a rival in any capital".

But in the 1920s Canberra needed a drawcard to offset its remoteness and harsh climate. In a capital city with realistic aspirations of greatness, a grand new hotel was as essential as houses, office blocks, swimming pools and even Parliament House.

Inside the Art Deco jewel, hidden behind a neat and sprawling exterior, it's a bright weekday afternoon in May, 2024. It's a sitting week, and the place is heaving, with every room booked. You wouldn't know it though; sauntering through the foyer, time seems to have stood still. The murmuring Tea Lounge is filled with people quietly taking tea or drinks, a side lounge has a fireplace burning, guests and solicitous staff are drifting purposefully down the carpeted hallways and staircases. The chandeliers sparkle, the mahogany glows.

Guests tend to delight in the old world charm; director of marketing and sales Mike Sarino says overseas visitors often liken it to the Dorchester in London, or the Gleneagles in Scotland.

And they love it. In the years since Hotel Canberra opened, legions of celebrities, dignitaries, aristocrats and people of note have walked the halls.

It's also been the site of political intrigue and skullduggery; lobbyists have lurked to waylay ministers, and politicians in residence have hatched plans that have, in some form or another, altered the fate of the nation, a state or at least a career or two.

Labour prime minister James Scullin insisted on living there during the Depression in the late 1920s and 30s, rather than staying at the Lodge. A decade later, the fate of Arthur Fadden's coalition government relied on the votes of two independent members who lived at the hotel, and much scheming was done in the lobby. To no avail; it was John Curtin's Labor government that took power to see out the wartime crisis.

When two former prime ministers from opposing parties joined to launch the Hyatt in 1988, it must have been, for some, a case of crossing the fenceline. While modern-day Hyatt management are at pains to reiterate that the hotel is in no way politically partisan, the traditional stakes had been laid early on.

The Hotel Canberra had been, in the main, a Liberal hangout. This was especially the case once Robert Menzies made the city - its progress and aspirations of greatness - his pet project in the 1950s. The nearby Kurrajong, built just a few years later, was a Labor stronghold, not least because prime minister Ben Chifley made it his chief residence, and would die of a heart attack in one of the suites in 1951.

But empires rise and fall, as do the egos that drive them. A hundred years is a long time for a single hotel to have kept its doors open, even counting the period from 1974 to 1988 that it wasn't a hotel at all, but an annexe for Parliamentary staff while the new house took shape up the hill.

Almost as soon as it opened, Hostel No.1 (it eventually became a hotel after King O'Malley's alcohol ban was lifted in 1928) was the social and political heart of the capital, the site of thousands of seismic political and personal events.

Dastardly political plots were hatched in the cosy bars and shadowy nooks of the sprawling Art Deco interior. World leaders attended summits, rock stars strutted the halls and wedding guests got messy. There have been wakes, memorials and graduations, affairs, engagements and marital spats, political spills and highly classified espionage activity.

It was also, in the early days, the only place in Canberra with adequate lock-up facilities, and criminals were held securely in suites while jurors deliberated nearby.

Actually, the hotel's current management are hoping that in this centenary year, the walls will actually start talking. They've launched a website asking for people to share their personal memories and anecdotes about the place.

They're hoping to hear about, for example, the streakers who tore through the Tea Lounge in the 1970s; the guests who lingered to hear Lady Gaga tinkling the keys in the lounge after hours; the man (or descendants thereof) who spent weeks trying to negotiate compensation for his wife's stolen Chinese silk knickers (he eventually accepted £3).

Not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of people - sedate public servants, rowdy workers and even bikie gangs - who can recall what went on at the hotel's infamous Back Bar, now long gone.

Keith Etchells worked as head banquet waiter for several years, and looked after the likes of the Japanese prime minister, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, John Laws, Sonia McMahon, Jacki Weaver and the infamous Rene Rivkin. He was also appointed the personal waiter to Gough and Margaret Whitlam at the 1988 opening, keeping them continuously supplied with daiquiris throughout the evening.

Pianist Stuart Warner, who has been playing at the Hyatt for 35 years, remembers the Tea Lounge as a regular after-work haunt, and the Saturday Supper Club, which used to call last drinks at 1am.

"On one particular night, a very well-dressed gentleman approached me in a fine white suit and a flamboyant neckerchief and promptly took over my set," he says.

"He played and sang and had the crowd captivated for well over two hours. Our surprise special guest was none other than Sir Barry Humphries who was staying at the Hyatt and had just finished a show at the Canberra Theatre."

Another who hopes the walls will spill the tea in coming months is David Fricker, former ASIO deputy director-general and former National Archives of Australia director.

He's been researching the Hyatt in the hopes of building a history of espionage in the capital, and says the Hotel Canberra was a kind of microcosm of Canberra and, by extension, the rest of Australia at the time.

"The centenary is another opportunity to celebrate the history of Canberra," he says.

"The fact that it was managed by the Commonwealth also speaks about the development of Canberra as an invention, a modern invention of Australia.

"Within all of these sort of episodes, there are of course human stories that reflect the social norms, the attitudes, the developments of Australia, and how Australia saw itself nationally."