Cheval Blanc Paris

On the quai du Louvre, where the Pont-Neuf meets the Right Bank, the 1928 Art Deco facade of La Samaritaine faces the Seine with its ribbon of yellow and ochre. Behind it since September 2021 is Cheval Blanc Paris, the first city hotel of the LVMH brand that began at Courchevel, with 72 rooms and suites, four restaurants and a spa run by Dior.

History

La Samaritaine was founded by Ernest Cognacq and Marie-Louise Jaÿ in 1870 and grew into the largest department store in Paris. The Seine-side building, designed by Henri Sauvage and completed in 1928, was its last expansion. The store closed in 2005 on safety grounds. LVMH, which had bought the group in 2001, spent sixteen years and a long planning fight on the reconstruction, with SANAA of Tokyo responsible for the new rue de Rivoli frontage and Édouard François for the hotel block. The store reopened in June 2021 and the hotel three months later.

Architecture and design

Peter Marino, who had already designed Cheval Blanc properties at Courchevel and St-Barth, did the interiors. He kept the ironwork and the Sauvage staircases and set against them a collection of commissioned art and furniture: a lobby with a monumental wall sculpture, bedrooms in pale oak and cream, bathrooms in white marble. The building is narrow and tall, so the plan is vertical: restaurants at the top with the river in view, the spa and pool at the bottom, bedrooms in between. Nearly every room has a window onto the Seine, the Pont-Neuf or the Île de la Cité.

Rooms and suites

The 72 rooms and suites are large for Paris, the smallest being around 45 square metres. The top of the scale is the apartment on the seventh floor with its own terrace and pool looking onto the river. Suites have dressing rooms, separate living rooms and, on the quai side, balconies.

Dining

Plénitude, on the first floor, is the restaurant of Arnaud Donckele, who came from La Vague d'Or at Saint-Tropez. It was awarded three Michelin stars in March 2022, six months after opening, with the pastry of Maxime Frédéric. Le Tout-Paris, on the seventh floor, is the brasserie with a terrace over the river. Langosteria is the Paris outpost of the Milanese seafood house. Limbar, at street level, is the café and bar where Frédéric's pastries are sold in the morning. Hotel guests have the roof terrace for drinks.

Wellness

The Dior spa occupies the lower floors with a 30-metre swimming pool, the longest in a Paris hotel, lined with a mosaic and lit from above. Treatment rooms, a hammam and a fitness room are alongside.

Weddings and events

The hotel's event spaces are the private dining rooms off the restaurants and the roof terrace, suited to dinners and receptions of modest size. It does not have a ballroom. Weddings are held for small parties, usually with the terrace and Le Tout-Paris for the reception.

Location

The hotel stands at 8 quai du Louvre in the first arrondissement, with the Louvre a few hundred metres west, the Pont-Neuf at the door and Saint-Germain across the river. Pont-Neuf and Châtelet are the nearest Métro stations. Charles de Gaulle Airport is about 45 minutes by car. Among the luxury hotels in Paris it is the only one with the Seine on its doorstep and a department store at its back.