Hotel Le Meurice

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Hôtel Le Meurice is a five-star hotel located at 228 rue de Rivoli in the 1st arrondissement of Paris and the oldest luxury hotel in the city.

History of origin

It was named after Charles-Augustin Meurice, the postmaster of the Paris-Calais route (* 1738, † 1820). He had owned a hotel named after him in Calais since 1771 and wanted to build a luxury hotel in Paris, especially for English tourists. The first location of the hotel was initially from 1817 on the parallel Rue Saint-Honoré 233. This made it the first luxury hotel in Paris. On January 6, 1835, M. Bavoux purchased a plot of land on the Rue de Rivoli, which was still under construction, and rebuilt the oldest and most traditional hotel in the city - 15 years after the eponym died. 160 rooms were created here, furnished to the highest contemporary standards. Its exposed location on the Rue de Rivoli, near the Place de la Concorde , opposite the Tuileries , the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré shopping street , the Place Vendôme with its luxury shops and the Louvre quickly made it world famous.

Famous guests

Queen Victoria stayed there during her state visit from August 17 to 28, 1855. The composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky stayed there from February 18 to March 12, 1879 and worked on the opera The Maid of Orleans . Between December 5th and 17th, 1879, he completed his 2nd piano concerto here . On March 28, 1918, King Edward VIII wrote a love letter to his mistress Freda Dudley Ward on the hotel's letterhead. King George VI. and Queen Elisabeth stayed here between July 19 and July 22, 1938 during their state visit. The house got its nickname "Hotel des Rois" (Hotel of Kings) from its royal guests.

The Hôtel Le Meurice on Rue de Rivoli

From 1905 the hotel was renovated for 9 million francs. After the renovation in 1907, Alfonso XIII. from Spain one of the first guests of the hotel. A philharmonic organ made by the German company M. Welte & Sons stood in the hotel between 1912 and 1914 . Pablo Picasso and his bride, the ballerina Olga Stephanowna Chochlova , had the wedding party here on July 12, 1918 with Jean Cocteau as best man. King Nikola of Montenegro even chose the hotel as his home after his resignation and flight on November 26, 1918. King Alfonso XIII. decided on the Meurice after his dethronement on April 14, 1931 as a new home under the name Duke of Toledo and moved in with the entire royal family. The Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson are said to have had unforgettable nights at the Meurice with a view of the Tuileries Gardens after Edward abdicated on December 10, 1936 . Other prominent guests in the 1930s were Coco Chanel with her fashion shows, Rudyard Kipling and Franklin D. Roosevelt .

During the Second World War , the Wehrmacht occupied Paris in June 1940 ; France had to sign the Compiègne armistice , which was similar to surrender . Since June 1940, the headquarters of Greater Paris resided in Le Meurice. Dietrich von Choltitz resided there since August 9, 1944 in room 213. He and his major Norman Gunther loved Paris and skillfully defied Adolf Hitler's orders to destroy Paris and not to let it fall undamaged into the hands of the Allies. The Führer order was: “Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy, or only as a field of rubble.” Various delaying tactics and refinement saved Paris the fate of Stalingrad , Warsaw or Berlin , with von Choltitz taking the personal risk of disobedience and - because of his contact with the Enemy and the Resistance - also accepted high treason . On the afternoon of August 25, 1944, the hotel was attacked, as a result of which General von Choltitz, Colonel Unger and some staff officers were taken prisoner.

One of the most unusual hotel guests was probably Salvador Dalí , who had spent at least one month a year in the luxury hotel since 1950, where he always occupied suite 108 on the first floor. He often stayed four months and spent the rest of a year in Portlligat and the St. Regis Hotel in New York . He irritated guests and staff by ordering a flock of sheep into his suite and having flies caught in the park. Dali's eccentric appearances until October 1976 made the hotel even more famous around the world.

The Shah of Persia was spending the night in the presidential suite in Meurice when news of his loss of power and the revolution from Tehran reached him on January 16, 1979 .

Location

The hotel was the location of numerous films : Is Paris Burning? (Premiere: October 28, 1966 in Germany) re-enacts the last days of the German occupation of Paris. This was followed by Julia (January 20, 1978), Mata Hari (April 24, 1985 in France), Angel-A (May 25, 2006 in Germany), Notre univers impitoyable (February 13, 2008), Les Femmes de l'ombre ( March 5, 2008) or Midnight in Paris (August 18, 2011 in Germany). The luxury hotel was featured in an episode of the German television series People and Hotels about world-famous hotels, which was broadcast on January 2, 2003 (directed by Rita Knobel-Ulrich ).

Today's standard

The hotel's logo depicts a greyhound that roamed the Rue du Rivoli in 1905. After the first renovation, completed in 1907, there were further conversions in 1947, 1998 (reopened in July 2000) and 2007. The designer Philippe Starck refurbished the hotel from March 2008 in the “Dalí style”. Since May 1997, the hotel has been owned by the Brunei Investment Agency of the Sultanate of Brunei , which transferred management to the intermediate Dorchester Hotel Group . It is an unchanged five-star hotel with 160 rooms (including 42 suites ); The restaurant , run by Alain Ducasse , has been awarded two stars by the Michelin Guide . The largest suite ( La Belle Etoile ) covers 297 square meters, has four bedrooms and a terrace of 250 square meters with a panoramic view of Paris. In May 2011, the French tourism authority Atout France awarded only 5 hotels in Paris, including Le Meurice , the newly created and highest category Palace Hotel .

Web links

Commons : Hôtel Le Meurice  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter from King Edward VIII of March 28, 1918 ( Memento of the original of December 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.argyll-etkin.com
  2. ↑ Elaine Denby, Grand Hotels: Reality and Illusion , 1998, p. 279 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ↑ Fuhrer order Blitzbefehl of 23 August 1944, 11 a.m., (OKW / WFSt / Op (H), No. 772989/44
  4. ↑ Karl did not arrive . In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1964, pp. 79 ff . ( online ).
  5. ↑ Michael Salewski , Guntram Schulze-Wegener : War Year 1944. 1995, p. 58 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  6. ↑ Torsten Otte: Salvador Dalí - A biography with self-testimonies of the artist . 2006, p. 123 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ Spiegel online from March 28, 2008, Starck's design treatment in Meurice: Dalí is alive
  8. ↑ Frank Sistenich: Dalí is alive. Spiegel Online, March 28, 2008, accessed January 23, 2009 .
  9. ↑ Spiegel online from May 9, 2011, Super luxury label: France names hotels as "Palace"

Coordinates: 48 ° 51 ′ 54.6 "  N , 2 ° 19 ′ 40.7"  E