Last orders at the Savoy

But on Saturday the Savoy Hotel will say goodbye to its last guests, close the register and serve them a farewell glass of champagne as it shuts its doors for the last time for more than a year.

The hotel where Oscar Wilde led a life of a scandal, where Winston Churchill drank the finest champagnes and Frank Sinatra told the barman to "set 'em up, Joe" is about to embark on the most expensive restoration in British hotel history.

When the last guest checks out tomorrow it will signal the start of a 16-month, £100 million project to transform a hotel long in tradition into somewhere capable of holding its own in the competitive world of the 21st century.

For admirers who have come to love the Savoy over the years, the closure of the hotel is a wrench enough in itself. Staff tell of guests overcome with emotion as they take their leave from the place for what seems like the last time.

It is not, of course: it will be back, and they will probably be back too. But the auction that is about to start next week makes it feel like the most final of farewells. Bonhams is due to sell off nearly 3,000 of the fixtures and fittings, from butlers' trays to king-sized beds, from wall lights to chandeliers, in a grand three-day sale. Last night as the last guests went to bed the Thames Foyer was filled with stately green chairs, each one bearing its own auction tag and giving the empty, darkened room the air of a ghost ship, haunted by the memories of times past.

In the room where the Evening Standard stayed, it seemed that everything that could be moved had its own lot number: the bed, the desk, the bedside tables, the lights, the walnut cabinet holding the television. Everything must go, except the history itself: for if there is anything that the Savoy does well, it is history. From the day it opened in 1889 the hotel has entertained some of the most celebrated figures of the age, from Claude Monet and James Whistler to Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. The first head chef, Auguste Escoffier, created the Peach Melba in honour of the great opera star Dame Nellie Melba, while Richard Harris stayed there so often that a suite still bears his name.

The American Bar - packed from late afternoon to last thing at night as people enjoy a final cocktail - is lined with the portraits of the stars who once drank there, f rom Humphrey Bogart to Barbra Streisand. When the pianist plays the old show tunes, it is a reminder that George Gershwin himself performed Rhapsody in Blue in the ballroom.

Perhaps it is no wonder then that old friends of the Savoy find it so emotional to see the place close for so long. Head concierge Ward Giroux says he has seen guests with tears in their eyes."There was one man who came here for the first time in 1943 and has been back three times to celebrate his wedding anniversary. He wanted to have afternoon tea here on the last day, but unfortunately it was full. He was so upset."

Even those who are newcomers to the hotel find it hard to resist the Savoy. "We love it," said Betty Brown, 49, a Canadian bank manager over here with her family from Vancouver. "We are here until it closes.

"There is this wonderful sense of history. It is hearing all the stories about all the people who have been here before, and then walking the same walk. As soon as you come in through the door it is like you are transported to a different time."