Paris’s Hotel Lutetia on the Left Bank a triumph of design and history
As a teenager dreaming of a bohemian Left Bank existence, I never thought I’d stay in grand palace hotel like this.
During high school French lessons, just the mention of the Rive Gauche made me want to take up smoking (Gauloises, a la Albert Camus, of course), wear a beret, change my name to Suzette, live in an atelier … It was not to be, even though reading Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus got me by in the suburbs of Sydney. In my reverie, I would have lived on threadbare means in true bohemian style, forever just a chapter away from finishing a best-selling novel. I would marry an artist and his name would be Claude, or Auguste, or Henri …
Even with such a heightened imagination, I never dreamed I would ever enter, let alone stay in, a grand building, with wrought-iron balconies and views towards Le Bon Marche, the fabled department store at which, it has to be conceded, I would probably have worked, wearing a little black dress and selling overpriced shoes and face creams and spending all my earnings on crystallised violet bonbons at La Grand Epicerie food hall. Susan the shopgirl, speaking bad French.
Oo la la. Some dreams do come true, even if for just one night. Hotel Lutetia was opened in Saint-Germain-des-Pres in 1910 in a glorious mansion by the owners of nearby Le Bon Marche so out-of-city customers would have a suitable pied a terre. It is late 2019 and, thanks to a fortuitous reservations glitch, I am upgraded from my perfectly charming guestroom at said art nouveau-meets-deco pile to one of the “signature suites”. Au revoir to No. 510 and bonjour to a multi-roomed spread on the sixth floor big enough for a head-of-state entourage. In conjunction with Carre Rive Gauche, “the leading alliance of art dealers in Saint-Germain-des-Pres”, this Presidential Suite feels like a combination of private museum, art gallery and library.
The series of salons covers the acreage of an apartment. In an alcove beside the bathroom stands a 17th-century marble sculpture of Venus that must have taken a crane to hoist aboard. There is a fitness room, dining nook that seats eight, handcrafted contemporary furniture, views of the Eiffel Tower and an 18th-century portrait of an imperious French noblewoman, Madame de Montbel, by my bed. She dutifully watches me as I sleep. A mass-produced print, you say? Off with your head. It’s an original by Henri-Antoine de Favanne, all mine (or yours) for €60,000 ($98,000) from F. Balme Fine Arts on Quai Voltaire.
On the bookshelves, Ian McEwan is nudging Claire Messud, Carlos Fuentas is chatting to Mario Vargas Llosa. A first-century Bodhisattva guards a pair of deep blue Kangxi vases from the Qing Dynasty. When I emerge for breakfast, a housemaid in the hallway practically curtsies, although my lack of bodyguards surely conveys I am representing a minor, and clearly impoverished, nation.
No matter the category, the hotel’s chambers have Italian marble ensuites replete with hand-carved tubs, Hermes toiletries and lavish beds dressed with Garnier-Thiebaut linens and an avalanche of squishy pillows. Oh joy, the control panels for lights and temperature are logical and intuitive. The raspberry nectar in the minibar is from juicer extraordinaire Alain Millet and tea blends by Palais des Thes, a Parisian company so posh it has grand crus varieties.
Hotel Lutetia, the biggest and only truly grand example on the Left Bank, plus recipient of a “palace” category rating, reopened in mid-2018 after a four-year revival with new features and a spruce-up of original elements. Named for the Roman village that preceded Paris, its storied history experienced a dark chapter during World War II when it was a base for the intelligence wing of the occupying German forces. Later it was an official refuge for French Jewish prisoners returning from Nazi death camps. The record does not expunge such horrors but staff tend to tell guests about the literary and artistic history, when Picasso and Matisse lived at the hotel in the 1930s, Hemingway and Joyce were regulars and Josephine Baker danced on the tables.
French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s comprehensive reimagining of the hotel is a triumph. Long-forgotten features such as ornamented mouldings, patterned tiling and friezes, all progressively subsumed by less-than-sympathetic refurbishments, have been restored to former glory. Public areas are more open, Murano glass chandeliers add colour and shine, and an internal atrium lightwell has been popped in above Patio Art Deco, a convivial courtyard for warm-weather dining. Accommodation was reduced from 230 guestrooms and suites to 184 so chambers are now airier and larger, perhaps to hold more Le Bon Marche shopping bags and hatboxes. Guestrooms and suites open off hallways of highly polished and lacquered eucalyptus and the nautical theme of the hotel is repeated in art deco lighting discs that resemble lifesaver rings. “The liner of the Left Bank” is but one description of this building at the corner of Boulevard Raspail and Rue de Sevres, its prow-like contours suggesting it could sail at any moment into the currents of traffic. Even the basement-level Akasha Holistic Wellbeing Spa, which closes at a leisurely 10pm, has porthole-style lighting by its 17m-long lap pool and marble surfaces with wave-like veins.
So to the bright and chatty Brasserie Lutetia, where Mediterranean-inspired menus are overseen by Michelin three-starred chef Gerald Passedat of Le Petit Nice in Marseilles (cue the langoustine and bouillabaisse). This is as much neighbourhood haunt as hotel restaurant, with a separate corner entrance and glass-enclosed pavement seating as well as indoor spaces. Over two days, I see the same chap seated at a table for one, with his laptop, newspaper and an everlasting cup of coffee. Waiters come and go, topping up his water glass, but none asks him to pay his bill or move on. It’s his office, living room, window on the street life of the Left Bank. If he were to wander into the hotel’s ground-floor Bibliotheque, and settle in with a book from its shelves – art tomes, design journals, lovelorn French novels – no one would bother him either. I toy with the idea of joining him.
Also beckoning with a 10m-long counter and mixologists by the mile is Bar Josephine, a long, lean cocktail joint with its barrel-vaulted contours again resplendent with art uncovered under layers of paint during the restoration. Across the corridor is the clubby Salon Saint-Germain, where even ordering a coffee under the glass-inset ceiling, smattered with contemporary daubs of colour by Fabrice Hyber, feels like performance art as light streams in and spills in discs across the walnut parquet floors. Guests take breakfast in L’Orangerie, another room of high proportions and tall windows, where the bread is warm and crusty, the eggs cooked to order and, this being Paris, lapdogs of less than 10kg are welcome, pas de probleme.
Meantime, as I clatter about in that world-leader suite, my best shoes have been popped outside to await a complimentary shine courtesy of Maison Berluti on Rue de Sevres. Shopgirl Susan’s butler has already inquired if she prefers a matt or gloss finish. It’s a vision of the Left Bank beyond my wildest dreams. If only Claude or Auguste or Henri could see Suzette now.
In the know
The latest Signature Suite in Hotel Lutetia’s inventory celebrates actor Isabelle Huppert. The Eiffel Penthouse has wraparound 360-degree roof terraces accessed by internal stairs. Largest of all, The Presidential Suite, covers 180 sqm. The property is a member of Leading Hotels of the World. Watch for accommodation specials as our international borders reopen and Etihad Airways advance purchase from its Australian ports to Paris via Abu Dhabi.
Susan Kurosawa was a guest of Etihad Airways.