Nobody does luxury like the French, and no Parisian designer has a surer touch than Jacques Garcia. His latest interior is La Réserve, a collaboration with hotelier Michel Reybier in which visiting royalty would feel entirely at home. “We gutted a 19th-century townhouse that formerly belonged to couturier Pierre Cardin and recreated it as though it were a Rothschild residence of that period,” explains project designer Antoine Panzani. “The owner added photographs of his family to make it feel even more lived-in.”

From the outside it is discreet; nothing but a scarlet curtain and door to announce its presence on the fashionable Avenue Gabriel, just off the Champs-Élysées. Steps lead up to an onyx-lined foyer and lounge, in which guests can check in as casually as they might at a friend’s house. There’s a richly furnished bar and the Gabriel restaurant, headed by Jérôme Banctel, a chef who won two Michelin stars in his last posting. The Salon Louis XV features wood block floors, silk brocade walls, and gilded boiserie around the ceiling. For guests only, there’s a linear library, with shelves of leather-bound classics and an intimate room for browsing the latest art books. Opening off is a smoking room with a sunburst trompe l’oeil ceiling, and a private courtyard that’s open in fine weather. The downstairs spa is a sybaritic retreat with dark red lacquer walls in the reception area and a pool.

There’s a consistency of tasteful elegance throughout the hotel, for Garcia has a passion for period style allied to an understanding of practical needs. Each of the rooms is a comfortable retreat from modern bustle and a functional workspace. The Ambassador suite, for example, employs soft tones and comfortable furnishings to achieve a feeling of serenity, while the Presidential suite is more dramatic with its tented ceiling and grand piano. In both, the latest technology is concealed to avoid jarring collisions of old and new. Flatscreen monitors are hidden behind mirrors and computer connections within graceful writing tables. As Panzani explains, “the decor of the upper-level suites defers to the impressive views over the city, so we gave them a light, airy quality.”