Shangri-La Paris

A grandson of Lucien Bonaparte, the geographer and botanist Prince Roland Bonaparte, commissioned the mansion at 10 avenue d'Iéna in the 1890s to house his family, his collections and his library. The house he built, a few hundred metres from the Trocadéro, became the Shangri-La Paris in December 2010. It is one of the rare Paris palaces whose main building was a private home first, and the layout still shows it.

History

The mansion was completed in 1896 to designs by the architect Ernest Janty. Roland Bonaparte, who had married the heiress Marie-Félix Blanc, daughter of the founder of the Monte Carlo casino, filled it with herbaria, maps and a library of some 150,000 volumes. After his death in 1924 the building passed through several institutional owners, including the Centre d'études de politique étrangère, before Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, the Hong Kong group of the Kuok family, bought it in 2006.

The conversion took four years. Richard Martinet of the Affine Design studio led the architectural restoration, while Pierre-Yves Rochon designed the interiors. The historic salons on the ground and first floors, including the grand staircase, the former dining room and the Salon Roland Bonaparte, are listed, and their gilding, woodwork and painted ceilings were restored rather than replaced. The hotel opened on 17 December 2010 and received the Palace distinction from Atout France in 2014.

Architecture and design

The street facade on avenue d'Iéna is restrained stone in the Second Empire manner. The surprise lies behind it: the mansion was built on a slope towards the Seine, so the rear elevation stands several floors taller than the front and looks straight across the river at the Eiffel Tower. Two new wings were added during the conversion to reach around 100 rooms, set back so that the original house keeps its silhouette.

Inside, Rochon mixed the Napoleonic references of the house, the bee and the eagle, with Asian touches that reflect the owner. The public rooms keep their original proportions. The former winter garden became La Bauhinia, the all-day restaurant, under a glass cupola that was reconstructed on the lines of the nineteenth-century original.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 100 rooms and suites, generous by Paris standards, with ceilings above three metres in the historic building. More than half of them have a view of the Eiffel Tower, either head-on across the Seine or at an angle over the rooftops of the 16th. The largest suites occupy the former private apartments of the prince, with their original panelling, and some have terraces facing the river. Bathrooms are in marble, with separate tubs and showers.

Dining

Two restaurants hold Michelin stars. L'Abeille, named after the Bonaparte bee, serves a French tasting menu in a room overlooking the garden and has held two stars since 2012. Shang Palace, in the lower ground floor, was the first Cantonese restaurant in France to receive a Michelin star, awarded in 2012; its dim sum lunch is the busiest service in the house. La Bauhinia, under the cupola, serves breakfast, a French and South-East Asian menu through the day and afternoon tea. The Bar Botaniste occupies the former smoking room.

Wellness

Chi, The Spa is on the lower floors, with treatment rooms and a 16-metre indoor pool lit by daylight from the garden side, one of the few hotel pools in Paris with natural light. A fitness room and a hammam complete it.

Weddings and events

The listed salons are the main attraction for private events. The Salon Roland Bonaparte, the former grand dining room and the adjoining reception rooms on the first floor open onto each other for receptions and seated dinners, and the garden terrace is used for cocktails in summer. Weddings, product launches and board meetings are all held here; the house is a regular choice for couture and jewellery presentations during the Paris fashion weeks because of its address near the avenue Montaigne. Capacities depend on the configuration and are confirmed by the events office.

Location

The hotel stands in the 16th arrondissement between the Trocadéro and the Seine, at the top of avenue d'Iéna. The Eiffel Tower is across the river by the Pont d'Iéna, the Palais de Tokyo and the Musée Guimet are a few minutes on foot, and the avenue Montaigne is on the other side of the Place de l'Alma. Iéna metro station on line 9 is at the door. Charles de Gaulle airport is about 45 minutes by car outside peak hours, Orly about 40 minutes. For a luxury hotel in Paris, the location is unusually quiet at night, since the avenue carries little traffic once the embassies close.