The Madison in Hamburg was one of the first in Germany to offer serviced apartments back in 1993. On 6 December, Hamburg entrepreneur Marlies Head opened the building on Schaarsteinweg near St. Pauli Landungsbrücken, today between the Michel and Elbphilharmonie concert halls. The aparthotel presented itself with 166 spacious serviced apartments of between 35 and 110 square metres. There was also a restaurant, a bar and a full range of hotel services - a first of its kind in the Hanseatic city at the time.
The hotel quickly attracted mainly actors during their week-long film shoots in Hamburg. To this day, however, guests also include traditional business travellers and short city breaks. Even during the pandemic, the four-star hotel was always open and continued to be booked primarily by actors due to its cosiness and self-catering facilities.
Marlies Head (centre) and Thomas Kleinertz (right) have a lot to celebrate with their team.
© The Madison Hamburg (Sandra Biegger)
Why were there never any more Madison houses?
"I had enough offers. But I always turned them all down out of loyalty to my fantastic team. I simply wanted to concentrate fully on this one property," says Marlies Head. Every year, she has invested almost 500,000 euros in the aparthotel. "I put almost everything I earned straight back into it," says the Madison founder.
A total of 3.5 million euros will also be invested in modernising the apartments and restaurant at the beginning of next year, says Thomas Kleinertz, who has been working at the Madison since 2002. He has been director since 2009 and is now also a co-partner of the aparthotel, which has 110 employees. He is to take over the hotel completely in future, and the lease for the building has just been extended until at least 2048.
"Marlies Head has created an aparthotel class of her own. I can still remember how she used to bend over with a cleaning rag in her hand to pick up every crumb," says Anett Gregorius, founder and owner of Apartmentservice. "The Madison stands for incredible consistency over the decades on the Hamburg market and is still highly relevant today. Congratulations and continued success and enjoyment!"
The Madison Hotel is a partner hotel of Apartmentservice and can be booked at attractive conditions directly with the Apartmentservice reservation team in Berlin or at www.apartmentservice.de. Here you will find a total of over 300 partner hotels with serviced apartments.