L'Hôtel

Rue des Beaux-Arts is a short street in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and number 13 is a narrow house whose interior is a cylinder: a circular well rising six floors to a glass dome, with the rooms arranged around it. L'Hôtel in Paris is the smallest hotel on these pages, with 20 rooms, and one of the most written about, because Oscar Wilde spent his last weeks in it and died there on 30 November 1900.

History

The building was put up on the site of a seventeenth-century pavilion and opened as the Hôtel d'Alsace in 1868, a cheap hotel for the students and painters of the École des Beaux-Arts at the end of the street. Wilde, released from Reading Gaol and living in Paris under the name Sebastian Melmoth, moved in during 1898 and could not pay his bill; the owner, Jean Dupoirier, let him stay. He died there of meningitis, in debt, aged 46.

In 1968 the house was bought by Guy-Louis Duboucheron, who gutted it, built the circular well and opened L'Hôtel with interiors by Robin Westbrook. It became the Left Bank address for actors and musicians through the 1970s, with guests who included Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and Jorge Luis Borges. In 2000 the hotel was bought by new owners and redecorated by Jacques Garcia, who kept the well and gave each room a theme. The restaurant later earned a Michelin star.

Architecture and design

The well is the architecture. Its curved balconies and the dome above give a house of modest size a sense of theatre, and Garcia's decoration leans into it with leopard print, striped silk and dark lacquer in the public rooms. The 2000 scheme also opened the vaulted cellar to make the hammam and pool. Each bedroom is decorated differently, in the manner of a private house rather than a chain.

Rooms and suites

There are 20 rooms including one apartment. The Oscar Wilde room, number 16, keeps the writer's memory with period furniture and a copy of his unpaid bill. The Mistinguett room is furnished with the Art Deco mirrored bed and pieces from the music-hall star's own apartment. The top-floor apartment has a terrace with a view over the roofs of Saint-Germain to the Louvre.

Dining

Le Restaurant, under the well, serves a short French menu and holds a Michelin star. Le Bar, a small dark room off the lobby with a fireplace, serves cocktails and is a quiet place to meet in a quarter otherwise given to crowded cafés. In fine weather a few tables are set in the small inner courtyard.

Wellness

In the stone cellar there is a hammam and a small plunge pool, reserved for one party at a time and booked by the hour by guests. There is no fitness room.

Weddings and events

L'Hôtel takes small weddings and private dinners, with the restaurant and bar privatisable for a party of a few dozen, and the whole house bookable for a wedding party that wants 20 rooms together. It does not hold conferences. Exact capacities are not in our source material.

Location

Number 13 rue des Beaux-Arts is between rue Bonaparte and rue de Seine, in the gallery streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with the Seine and the Louvre across the Pont des Arts within ten minutes on foot. Métro Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Mabillon are the closest stations; Paris-Orly and Paris-Charles de Gaulle are both about 45 minutes by car. As luxury hotels in Paris go, it is the only one where the history is told in a single room.