Checking in at a Paris Landmark

Opened in 1910 by the Boucicaut family, founders of the briskly chic Le Bon Marché department store, Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris, was imagined as the kind of refined crash pad its shoppers might like to retreat to. They called it Lutetia after the Roman name for Paris and gave it the historical emblem of a ship. Sure enough, the building has been docked like an ocean liner on the corner of Boulevard Raspail and Rue de Sèvres, grandly overseeing proceedings ever since. The guestbook reads like a cultural who’s who of the 20th century: Picasso, Matisse, Josephine Baker. James Joyce toiled over his epic Ulysses between stints tinkling on the piano in the bar and General de Gaulle honeymooned in the Suite Amour. Outside, the original stone-carved cherubs and grapevines still curl across the façade. Inside, the grand ballroom remains largely untouched: vaulted ceilings, filigreed plasterwork, the air thick with echoes of soirées past, a time capsule of high society Paris. But this isn’t a monument, it’s a living space. Architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s 2018 restoration stripped back the dust without scrubbing away the spirit of the place, giving the Lutetia room to breathe but also keep pace with the city around it.

Lutetia’s upper floors carry the same elegant momentum as its public spaces – streamlined, glamorous and quietly self-assured. The look is refreshingly unfussy, no overdone opulence, just a cool hand on the tiller. The yachting nod continues with corridors lined in gleaming dark wood beneath mirrored ceilings. Rooms are equally clean-lined and restrained. The street-facing ones at the front have a colour palette of inky indigos that are deep and cinematic. Those on the other side are calmer, and the design follows suit with gentle greys, soothing and pared back. Without the chintz, perhaps, of the other Palace hotels, Lutetia feels rooted to its heritage but less tethered by it. Parisian treetops and rooftops are framed like paintings by the oversized windows and, from the top floor bedrooms, the Eiffel Tower sparkles at night. It is best seen from the Francis Ford Coppola suite – Appartement Saint-Germain – with its wraparound terrace and an original Godfather script by one of the bathrooms. The overall feel is glamour with its collar undone.