Paris Region
Hôtel de Crillon
The bathtub weighs two tons. Carrara marble, Arabescato Orobico variety, dark veined. The floor had to be reinforced before installation. Traffic lanes on Place de la Concorde were closed. A crane lifted the tub through a fourth-floor window. The marble block was placed on two large ice blocks inside the bathroom. The ice melted slowly. The tub settled into position without cracking the floor.
Marc Raffray, the managing director, mentioned this to a CNBC reporter in 2017. "We had to reinforce the floor to make sure that the bath doesn't go on the third floor."
Aline Asmar d'Amman grew up in Beirut during the war years of the 1970s and 1980s. She turned to books. She later said words felt like shields. In 2011 the Saudi owner of the Hôtel de Crillon called her. She was relatively unknown outside Lebanon and France at the time.
The building on Place de la Concorde was 253 years old. King Louis XV had commissioned the façade in 1755. Ange-Jacques Gabriel designed it. Gabriel also designed the Petit Trianon at Versailles. The same hands.
Marie Antoinette took piano lessons inside the mansion. She married Louis XVI on the plaza in 1770. Twenty-three years later she was executed by guillotine in the same plaza. The blade fell directly in front of what is now the hotel entrance.
D'Amman wanted to invite Karl Lagerfeld to design the presidential suites. She wrote him a handwritten letter and delivered it by hand to one of his addresses. She later described this as "throwing a bottle into the ocean."
Lagerfeld called her.
He already owned something relevant. At a Christie's auction years earlier he had purchased the original paper architectural model of the Hôtel de Crillon façade. Made by Ange-Jacques Gabriel himself. D'Amman did not know this when she first approached him.
The renovation took four years. 200 million euros. 5,000 people worked on it. 250 master craftsmen. 147 artisans.
Lagerfeld designed two suites on the fourth floor. He named them Les Grands Appartements. The same term used for the royal apartments at Versailles. The suites overlooked the plaza where Marie Antoinette died.
He insisted on specific things. The roses in the suites must be white. The leaves must be removed. Lagerfeld did not care for greenery.
The carved wooden walls required nine layers of paint. Custom combs achieved the texture he wanted. He selected each crystal for the dining room chandelier individually.
A fabric mill had to replicate an 18th-century silk weave. A single scrap of Louis XVI-era fabric had survived somewhere in the building. They matched the weave. They matched the hand-dyeing process.
Féau Boiseries, the 150-year-old Parisian firm, supplied the wood paneling. Guillaume Féau brought Lagerfeld to their showroom. It sits behind an unremarkable door in a neighborhood known for upscale food stores. Inside: wood panels dating to the 16th century. Lagerfeld chose panels from Madame de Pompadour's château at Crécy-Couvé. The king and his mistress had met there.
He had the antique panels transported to the construction site. He examined them in different lighting conditions before approving reproduction.
Adjacent to the two suites: a small room. Black and white stripes. Carpet designed to look like cat scratches.
Choupette's room. Named for Lagerfeld's Birman cat. Photographs of the cat hang on the walls. Lagerfeld took the photographs himself.
The three spaces combined span 335 square meters. The nightly rate runs between 32,000 and 56,000 euros.
In the women's hair salon, an artisan named Eric Charles-Donatien spent 350 hours on a single alcove. He cut metal and real feathers by hand. He gilt-tipped each one. He affixed them individually. The finished space looks like an 18th-century jewel box.
Peter Lane designed the basement swimming pool. 33,000 mosaic tiles. Each one cut from two slices of molten glass with 24-carat gold leaf inside. Some tiles have hammered surfaces. Some are smooth. The pattern mimics fish scales.
The Finest Details
The barber chairs came from 1960s Aston Martin interiors. The leather was salvaged. The sommelier, Xavier Thuizat, maintains a cave with 40,000 bottles. 213 varieties of Champagne are available at the bar. The bathroom amenities come from Buly 1803, a French perfumery that dates to 1803. The linens come from Rivolta Carmignani. The pillows and duvets from Drouault. The china from Bernardaud. The crystal from Baccarat and St Louis. The espresso machines wear cognac-colored Hermès leather.
The Salon des Aigles is on the second floor. Benjamin Franklin signed a treaty there in 1778. The treaty recognized the United States Declaration of Independence. In 1919, in the same room, delegates signed the Covenant of the League of Nations.
President Woodrow Wilson stayed at the hotel during the Paris Peace Conference. His advisor Edward House stayed there too. Theodore Roosevelt slept there. Winston Churchill. Charlie Chaplin. Leonard Bernstein wrote in the guest book in 1989: "What a pleasure being once again on my terrace over Place de la Concorde."
Bernstein's suite is on the top floor. A wrap-around terrace. One of his pianos remains inside.
The Marie-Antoinette suite has rose-gold faucets. The marble came from the same quarry that supplied Versailles. The desk drawers are lined with pearls and crystals. D'Amman explained that Marie Antoinette's drawers were never empty.
The suite overlooks the plaza where the queen died.
Lagerfeld finished the design in 2017. He was 83 years old. He died 19 months later. The suites are among his last completed projects.
D'Amman saw him for the last time at a gallery opening in Paris in 2019. The Carpenters Workshop. They had collaborated on a furniture collection called Architectures. Marble tables and mirrors. A tribute to Greek mythology.
She stood next to him that evening.
The ceilings in the lobby are one meter higher than before. D'Amman raised them to allow more natural light.
In place of a grand lobby there are now smaller connected rooms. Jardin d'Hiver serves afternoon tea. Bar Les Ambassadeurs occupies what was once a high-rococo restaurant. The ceiling is a protected landmark. Purple mica stone covers parts of the walls.
A hidden restaurant sits behind a secret door.
The bathtub is still on the fourth floor.