Hôtel Récamier

Hôtel Récamier’s present character took shape in a major renovation completed in 2009. Hotelier Sylvie de Lattre had already worked on Le Verneuil and Hôtel Thérèse when she found the narrow limestone building on place Saint-Sulpice. In an interview about the project, she described wanting to turn it into the sort of intimate Left Bank house she had long imagined. She chose interior designer Jean-Louis Deniot to carry out the transformation.^[5][6]

The work took about a year and went well beyond new furniture. Deniot reworked the building’s interior and even moved the elevator. De Lattre recalled six floors with six colour schemes and 150 different fabrics, with each of the 24 rooms given its own treatment. The result brought the scale of a private house into a working hotel.^[6]

The name honours Juliette Récamier, the nineteenth-century hostess whose salon attracted writers and politicians. The renovation made her part of the decoration: niches on the different floors displayed busts of Récamier reinterpreted in the styles of artists including Daniel Buren, Christo and Yves Klein. In the shared rooms, Deniot mixed Directoire references with furniture inspired by the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.^[6]

That mix remains visible in the hotel’s Art Deco-inspired fabrics, sculptural tables, mirrors and contemporary photographs. The salon opens onto a small courtyard with a fountain, and afternoon tea is served in these shared spaces. These details grew out of the original aim for the renovation: somewhere guests could settle into a sitting room and garden, as well as sleep.^{[1][2][3][4][6]}