Known for its high-end offerings as well as charming boltholes, the French capital is as attractive to hotel developers as it is to travelers. “Paris continues to have some of the highest rates of luxury development in the world for a major urban center,” says Bruce Ford, senior vice president and director of global business development at Lodging Econometrics. With 11 hotels and 1,782 rooms set to open this year, according to data benchmarking company STR, the spate of recent development will accommodate throngs of returning visitors, especially as the city prepares to host the Summer Olympics in 2024. Among those new offerings is the Cheval Blanc Paris. Owner LVMH transformed the Art Deco La Samaritaine building into the 72-room hotel with the help of New York architect Peter Marino, who celebrated the building’s history with thoughtful moments like patinated bronze and white marble chandeliers in guestrooms and gilded bronze openwork that appears throughout.

Nearby, French architect and designer Charles Zana refurbished an original Haussmann building into the Kimpton St Honoré Paris on Boulevard Haussmann, adding modern touches, including an indoor pool and rooftop terrace while repurposing two Art Nouveau elevators into workstations.

The bright and airy mezzanine library at the Kimpton St Honoré Paris

Bulgari added Paris to its growing roster of hotels with the 76-room Bulgari Hotel Paris, which landed on Avenue George V in December with a design by Milan firm Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel (ACPV) that references Italian Renaissance architecture. “Many of the luxury hotels in Paris are considered grande dames, but we wanted to create something that felt different, evoking the feeling of a hotel particulier but located in the Rive Gauche,” says ACPV cofounder Patricia Viel. “The hotel feels sleek and sophisticated but also like a place you want to stay and relax.”

A few luxury properties also revamped their interiors. Le Prince de Galles, a Luxury Collection Hotel, unveiled its exalted Lalique suite and debuted Akira from the Michelin-star chef of the same name; Hotel Costes converted the former Hotel Lottí into its newly connected Castiglione wing, with 20 suites designed by the late Christian Liaigre; the 112-key Hotel Bel Ami reconfigured eight first-floor rooms into five sleek Left Bank apartments; and the 48-room Hotel Bowmann was overhauled by French designer Laurent Maugoust last September with each floor painted a different color.

A classic exterior invites guests into Maison Albar Hotels Le Vendome

The City of Light’s development continues apace, with London-based designer Anouska Hempel lending her expertise to the 50-key Monsieur George Hotel & Spa, hotelier Ori Kafri adding the 29-room J.K. Place Paris to his collection of boutique hotels, and French designer Fabien Roque transforming the former Lyon d’Or cabaret into the 51-room Maison Albar Hotels Le Vendome, which revives the spirit of the era by “combining intimacy, luxury, and amazement,” he says.

Here, we shine a spotlight on four that continue to remake Paris via a modern lens.

The Hôtel Elysia

Le Bayadère pays homage to the art of ballet with its understated palette and artwork

Housed within a Haussmann building near the Champs-Elysées in the chic 8th arrondissement, the Hôtel Elysia “is a romantic story that plays with the codes of Parisian clichés,” says local designer Oscar Lucien Ono. The nine-month-long restoration revealed a contemporary look starring dramatic elements like Francois Mascarello’s bas-relief interpretation of Gustav Klimt’s Kiss that sits behind the reception desk and Le Bayadère restaurant’s take on Henri Matisse’s La Danse, boasting voluptuous shapes that mingle with wood and brass under soft lights. The 39 rooms and suites are awash in warm hues of pale pink and green, complementing moldings and woodwork typical of Haussmann-style interiors. A more muted palette of gray and white in the public areas allow the neo-Art Deco accent pieces to shine, notably statues found throughout the property that recall those by Auguste Rodin and Alberto Giacometti.

The Saint James Paris

The Saint James Paris nods to its neoclassical past through artwork and wrought-iron details

Paris-based designer Laura Gonzalez and hotelier Olivier Bertrand have worked together for nearly a decade. And their partnership continues to prove fruitful with the opening of Bertrand’s latest, the Saint James Paris, a reimagination of a neoclassical château in the 16th arrondissement that includes a fine dining restaurant, library bar, and serene spa. Featuring a mélange of classic and contemporary design notes that recreate a Parisian townhouse evocative of French ‘art de vivre,’ Gonzalez refreshed the curvilinear gilded black wrought-iron staircase, as well as the millwork and coffered ceilings in the original library. A more audacious spirit is expressed in frescoes that stretch across 50-foot-long ceilings and mix-and-match patterns that cover walls. While many moments are understated, drama unfolds in the 48 guestrooms, where plaster chandeliers by sculptor Patrice Dangel are striking centerpieces. “We treated the rooms and suites as if we were decorating a home rather than applying a hotel mindset,” she says. “By steering clear of the latest trends, the décor will never be outdated because it is in harmony with the venue.”

Hôtel des Academies et des Arts

A colorful mural covers the lobby ceiling at Hôtel des Academies et des Arts

Académie de la Grande Chaumière, the art school straddling Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Près, has helped to nurture legends like Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, and Tsuguharu Foujita since its founding in 1904. Hôtel des Academies et des Arts, which opened just across the street in late 2021, honors its neighbor’s past by recreating the atmosphere of a Belle Époque-era atelier. At this newest addition to the Adresses Hôtels collection, guests take in works from contemporary artists and sketch for hours on the daybed sofa in the salon-like lounge. There is a “feeling of being at home,” says Stéphanie Lizée, cofounder of local design practice Lizée-Hugot, noting that the thoughtful placement of furniture conjures “the idea of stripping, of balance, as in an artist’s studio.” In the 20 guestrooms, for instance, one of which Amedeo Modigliani regularly painted in, Lizée opted for a palette of natural materials like lime plaster, dark oak, and black glazed terracotta. Half of the accommodations are enlivened by Franck Lebraly’s ceiling frescoes that nod to Cubism and Surrealism, but “the eye of the traveler is caught,” adds Lizée, by other “strong elements—a black-and-red-striped stool, the reflection of a stainless-steel lamp, and wall hangings in tawny silk.”

Hôtel Madame Rêve

A ceiling fresco by Chilean artist María José Benvenuto crowns La Plume restaurant in Hôtel Madame Rêve

Local firm Dominique Perrault Architecture spent nearly a decade rehabbing the imposing late-19th-century Louvre Post Office in the 1st arrondissement. Now sporting a decidedly contemporary two-story indoor sky garden (and soon, a rooftop terrace), it houses restaurateur Laurent Taïeb’s 82-room Hôtel Madame Rêve. Taïeb, who also serves as creative director, oversaw the warm, honeyed interiors, characterized by swaths of walnut contrasted with oak furniture, velvet curtains, and playful Zellige mosaics. “My friend, Andrée Putman, inspired the hotel’s color scheme,” explains Taïeb, referencing the late interior designer’s motto, “life must be golden.” Artworks from the likes of Maria José Benvenuto and Olivier Masmonteil are showcased in the public spaces, including the panoramic Japanese-influenced La Plume. Unlike this pared-back restaurant, the ground-floor Mediterranean brasserie with 26-foot-high ceilings “expresses my fascination with the Viennese Secession,” says Taïeb, pointing out how the chandeliers draw from Wiener Werkstätte cofounder Josef Hoffmann’s oeuvre. “They are truly reminiscent of historic grandeur.”

This article originally appeared in HD’s February/March 2022 issue.

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