Seen on ehotelier.com - July 03, 2008
By Anthony Grant
10 great properties for memorable Parisian nights
There are a thousand different ways to see Paris, and luxury hotel options to match. Indeed, with an array of intriguing accommodations seemingly as vast and endless as galleries in the Louvre, Paris is hotel heaven. Traditionally, the two most popular hotel options in the French capital were of the three-star charming and five-star palace varieties, but the advent of design hotels as well as the flowering of a new, all-French owned palace hotel has changed the lodging landscape in the City of Light.
© Hotel Bellchasse
In Picture: Hottest Paris Hotels.
For the better, we hasten to add-case in point, the fabulous Hôtel Fouquet's Barrière. This bastion of French flair and debonair service takes second billing only to the avenue it's anchored to: the Champs-Elysées. The spiritual core of the hotel is the landmark Paris restaurant Le Fouquet's, which opened in 1898, and gained fame in the '30s as a high-end hangout for the beau monde of French cinema. A hundred years later, the Lucien Barrière group enlisted architect Edouard François to transform five Belle Epoque buildings surrounding Le Fouquet's into a single unit. He replicated the restaurant's Hausmann-era façade by casting it sculpturally in raw concrete and applying it to the modern façades.
Celebrated French designer Jacques Garcia designed the interiors. On entering, one is struck by the dramatic contrast of the geometric Carrara marble floor with a luxurious array of giant diamonds. Curved walls are upholstered with embroidered chocolate-colored leather; seating areas are marked by golden voile drapes, oversized mirrors and Murano glass chandeliers. An interior courtyard sports a vertical forest of silver-colored branches, a counterpoint to the gold, copper and ivory tones of the 107 guestrooms and suites.
"One thing that sets us apart is the round-the-clock butler service for all categories of rooms," says Marjan Sabetian, the hotel's director of sales and marketing. "Plus we have amazing views of the Eiffel Tower on one side of the hotel and views of the Arc de Triomphe on the other." And even though you can see the whole length of the always-bustling Champs-Elysées from many of the rooms, Marjane points out that thanks to complete soundproofing, "you don't have to
hear a thing."
Hotel Fouquet's Barrière has, in short, what other Parisian palaces like the Ritz and Four Seasons George V lack: panache. Another hotel that's even newer (Hotel Fouquet's opened in 2006), but smaller and more artistic, is the Hotel Bellechasse on the Left Bank and about a block to the Seine. It has only 34 rooms, but like the lobby they have been dressed up by Christian Lacroix. There are seven themes: Saint-Germain, with gold leaf effects and Pompeii-style frescoes; Tuileries, with crisp Parisian elegance; Patchwork, with Persian and Arabic motifs; Mousquetaires, with yellow brocade curtains and a Renaissance look; the futuristic Jeu de Paume, the astrologically themed Quai d'Orsay, and the "swinging London" Avengers.
The lobby and breakfast areas are marked by colorful frescos incorporating design elements from antiquity and the Renaissance. It all fits in well with the neighborhood, with the Musée d'Orsay as well as numerous noted antiques dealers very close by. "For me, a hotel must reflect the character of the locality it is standing in," says Lacroix, and should represent "a journey within the journey." The designer drew on a range of personal and artistic inspirations for virtually every square inch of the property, from the guestrooms to the public spaces. Of the latter he says, "The staircases are scattered with graphic images and covered with bright red carpet, the walkways are softened by round partitions, the ceilings are black and I designed the carpet with strokes of black ink on a white background."
Clearly Lacroix's singular fashion background has made him a contender for designing small hotels with a twist. Before tackling the Bellechasse, he designed the 17-room Hotel du Petit Moulin in the ultra-trendy Upper Marais district. The 17th-century building, completely renovated, is on the site of an ancient bakery. Each guest room is different and a reflection of Lacroix's tastes: some rooms are done up in a rustic-style Marais decorated with Jouy linen, others are decorated with cornices, consoles and moldings, and some are more pop in style. Many of the rooms feature the kind of "fresco collages" also in abundance at the Bellechasse.
Where you stay says a lot about you, and if you stay at the Hotel Sezz you'll be telling the world you're nobody's fool when it comes to finding a swanky address in Paris. The hotel draws its name from the arrondissement it's located in, number 16 (pronounced sezz in French), and this particular parcel of it, Passy, is the chicest. You're walking distance to the Eiffel Tower. The building dates from 1913 but emerged from a complete renovation in 2005 looking like an Austin Powers bachelor fantasy: expect elongated vases, "severe and masculine" (according to the hotel's Web site) custom furniture designed by Christophe Pillet (a protégé of Philippe Starck), oversized bathtubs, queen-sized freestanding leather and chrome beds, textured stone walls that echo the Paris rooftops, and acid red shag carpets against hard slate floors. There are 27 rooms, of which 14 are suites.
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Source: Forbes Traveler
