Hotel Ritz (Paris)

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Hotel Ritz
around 1900

The Hôtel Ritz in Paris is a legendary French grand hotel at number 15 Place Vendôme . It is one of the Leading Hotels of the World .

history

The property of today's hotel on Place Vendôme (house 15) was acquired by Antoine Bitaut de Vaillé of the city of Paris on February 3, 1705 for 35,000 livres and converted into the Hotel de Gramont . In 1854 the property was bought by the brothers Émile and Isaac Pereire , who moved the headquarters of their investment bank Société Générale du Crédit Mobilier , founded in 1852 , to it. After an interim phase as Hotel de Lazun , César Ritz acquired the property in March 1897 and had it brought up to date by architect Charles Mewès. The facade built by the builder of the Place Vendôme, Jules Hardouin-Mansart , was retained. On June 5, 1898, the opening took place with personalities from all over the world. Furniture, service and ambience in the Art Nouveau style have offered the haute société the highest quality ever since , for which the word ritzy was later used as a synonym in English . Ritz employed the best French chef, Auguste Escoffier , who was already known to him, as head chef.

The founder's son, Charles Ritz, ran the hotel until his death in July 1976, after which his wife Monique Ritz took over. During this phase, the level of the hotel fell. In 1979 Monique Ritz sold the loss-making hotel to the Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed for a purchase price of US $ 20 million for lack of descendants . Fayed began a $ 250 million renovation in 1980 that continued until 1987 while the hotel was still in operation.

From July 2012 to June 2016 the hotel was renovated again; the cost was estimated at around 200 million euros. Al-Fayed secured the financing through the sale of the London luxury department store Harrods for 1.7 billion euros in May 2010. Since then, a tunnel has led from the underground car park underneath Place Vendôme directly to the hotel and is intended to prevent onlookers from seeing the illustrious guests . The reopening was supposed to take place in autumn 2015, but was also delayed due to a fire in January 2016. The hotel has been welcoming guests again since June 2016.

In January 2018, five robbers attacked the entrance area of ​​the hotel, in which luxury goods are exhibited, and smashed the showcases with axes; The police arrested three attackers . The booty was worth four and a half million euros. From April 17, 2018, more than 10,000 pieces of furniture and furnishings from before the renovation in 2016 were auctioned in a multi-day auction; the proceeds amounted to 7.3 million euros.

Guests

The hotel is associated with its famous guests such as Rudolph Valentino , Marcel Proust , Ernest Hemingway and Coco Chanel , who lived here from 1936 until her death in 1971 and called the hotel ma maison ("my house"). Hotel guest Ernest Hemingway is said to have said: "When I dream of an afterlife, it always takes place at the Ritz in Paris." On August 31, 1997 , Lady Diana Spencer spent the last hours of her life in the hotel .

capacity

The Hotel Ritz had a total of 106 rooms and 55 suites until 2012, and since 2016 there have been 142 rooms, including 71 suites. There is the star restaurant L'Espadon , several bars , a green inner courtyard and a health club.

Hotel classification

The Hotel Ritz has the status of a five-star hotel . In May 2011, the French tourism authority Atout France awarded only five hotels in Paris (including the neighboring Park Hyatt Vendôme and the Hôtel Le Meurice ) the newly created “Palace Hotel” category; the Ritz was ignored and retained its status.

Popular culture

The hotel inspired Irving Berlin's composition Puttin 'on the Ritz , an evergreen from 1929. The title picks up on the colloquial English phrase puttin' on the Ritz , which means something like "dress up ". The hotel was the location for movies such as A Sweet Fratz (German premiere: December 20, 1957), How do you steal a million? (September 16, 1966), both with Audrey Hepburn , or The Da Vinci Code (May 18, 2006), scenes from the film Midnight in Paris (August 18, 2011) also played in the rooms of this hotel.

The hotel bar Hemingway is known for the cocktail “Serendipity” made from champagne and calvados .

Web links

Commons : Hôtel Ritz Paris  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ François de Saint-Simon, La place Vendome , 1982, p. 259 .
  2. ^ The Hotel Ritz in Paris. In: parisinfo.de. October 20, 1918, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  3. ^ Tino Andresen: Parisian hotel myth is crumbling: cracks in the crack. In: wiwo.de. October 24, 2011, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  4. ^ David S .: Ritz Paris: Paris, France: The Leading Hotels of the World. In: de.lhw.com. Retrieved January 20, 2016 .
  5. ^ "Ritz" in Paris: Hotel legend reopens after four years. In: t-online.de. June 6, 2016, accessed June 6, 2016 .
  6. ↑ tagesschau.de: Robbery in the Ritz: With axes through the luxury temple. Retrieved January 11, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Furniture from Pariser Ritz auctioned for 7.3 million euros orf.at, April 22, 2018, April 22, 2018.
  8. ^ Nobel hotel Ritz Paris: Turning off like God in France. In: Spiegel Online . August 31, 2012, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  9. ^ Paula McLain: The Paris Wife . 2012, no p.
  10. ↑ Information on the booking page hrs.de; Retrieved September 19, 2016
  11. ↑ Super luxury label: France labels hotels as “Palace”. In: Spiegel Online . May 9, 2011, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Legendary Bar Hemingway shares recipe for Serendipity cocktail. In: Star2.com. August 9, 2017. Retrieved May 13, 2019 (American English).

Coordinates: 48 ° 52 '3.8 "  N , 2 ° 19" 42.7 "  E