Beijing Hotel NUO was established in 1917 as the Grand Hotel de Pekin and quickly became known as "The Most Luxurious Hotel in the Orient." Located along East Chang'an Avenue near Wangfujing in Dongcheng District, it gained a second, Beaux-Arts-style wing of reinforced concrete between 1917 and 1920, adding 200 rooms with private baths. Over the decades, the hotel has hosted an extraordinary list of guests, including revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and U.S. President Richard Nixon, as well as writers Rudyard Kipling, Noël Coward, and George Bernard Shaw, and royals such as Princess Anne and Prince Albert of Monaco. With its central location and more than a century of history, Beijing Hotel NUO remains one of China's most prestigious hotels today.