Hôtel de Crillon – the royal palace at Place de la Concorde

The Hôtel de Crillon was built for Louis XV, witnessed France recognise the USA, and became a hotel in 1909. After four years of restoration, the palace on Place de la Concorde is once again one of Paris's most sought-after addresses.

On the north side of Place de la Concorde in Paris stand two identical stone palaces with colonnades, separated by rue Royale. The eastern one is the Hôtel de la Marine, the western one the Hôtel de Crillon. From the balconies you can see the obelisk, the Tuileries and the Champs-Élysées – and for almost three centuries the building has been a stage for French history, first as a palace and then, since 1909, as a hotel.

01Gabriel's palace for Louis XV

The building was erected in 1758, when Louis XV commissioned the architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel to design two neoclassical palaces on the new square, then called Place Louis XV. The buildings were intended as state offices. The first to move into the western one was the Duke of Aumont, a renowned patron of the arts, and the next owner, the architect Louis-François Trouard, had the Salon des Aigles built in 1775. You can explore the square further on VERA PI's page about Place de la Concorde.

021778: Benjamin Franklin at the table

On 6 February 1778, the Americans Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee and the French diplomat Conrad Alexandre Gérard met in the house to sign the first treaties between France and the USA – including a treaty of amity and commerce through which France recognised the young nation. Ten years later, François Félix de Crillon bought the house, and his family gave it its name. During the Revolution it was confiscated, and in 1793 Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were executed on the square outside.

Insider tip

Nearest metro: Concorde.

The Crillon family got the house back and lived there until 1904. Two years later, the Société du Louvre bought the property and two neighbouring houses on rue Boissy-d'Anglas. The architect Walter-André Destailleur remodelled the interiors, and on 11 March 1909 the Hôtel de Crillon was inaugurated.

03The peace conference, Hemingway and the debutante ball

After the First World War, parts of the American delegation to the peace conference in Paris stayed at the Crillon. In Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, the narrator Jake Barnes sits writing letters in the lobby while waiting for Lady Brett Ashley. Between 1992 and 2012, the annual Bal des débutantes was held in the building.

04The restoration and Lagerfeld's suites

On 31 March 2013, the Crillon closed for the largest restoration in the house's history. The architect Aline Asmar d'Amman led the work together with Tristan Auer, Chahan Minassian and Cyril Vergniol, and Karl Lagerfeld designed Les Grands Appartements, the hotel's most extravagant suites. A pool was built in the basement. The hotel reopened on 5 July 2017 under Rosewood, and on 19 September 2018 it received the Palace distinction – the twenty-fifth hotel in France to do so.

Today the Crillon has 78 rooms and 46 suites. The most famous suites are on the sixth floor, with views over the Concorde. The Salon des Aigles and the Salon Marie-Antoinette on the first floor have been protected as historic monuments since 1964, as have the building's façades.

05Eating and drinking at the Crillon

L'Écrin is the hotel's gastronomic restaurant with one star in the Guide Michelin, the Jardin d'Hiver serves tea and pastries, and the bar is called Les Ambassadeurs. Every November, the jury of the French literary prize Prix Femina announces its winners at the hotel. If you want to see more of the neighbourhood, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré and avenue Gabriel are a few minutes away. The whole 8th arrondissement can be found on VERA PI's page about the neighbourhood.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.