Hôtel Lutetia… We’ll… Meet Again…

Hôtel Lutetia…

J’adore…

My hotel…

My home… away from… home…

It is…

Where… we meet…

Where… we love…

Poetically…

Communicate…

Glasses… of dark red wine…

Huddled… in burgundy deep velvet “fauteilles“…

Pianist playing…

Our music…

“Syracuse…”

“Que reste t’il…”

“Fascination…”

Divine…

Hôtel Lutetia…

45 Boulevard Raspail…

Saint-Germain-des-Prés…

6th Arrondissement…

Built in 1910… it is… one of the first major Art Deco buildings in Paris…

Founded by the owner of… “Le Bon Marché” department store… (a favourite)…

It is located… “à l’angle du boulevard Raspail et de la rue de Sèvres”.

Louis-Charles Boileau and Henri Tauzin were the creative architects who gave it that very special Lutetia… “caché“… ambience…

Entering… through the entrance hall of my favourite hotel in St. Germain… by way of a charming circular rotating door…

I’m enveloped… “comme toujours”… by that warm cosy feeling of intimacy… “tomber amoureaux”…

Falling in love…

At the start of World War II… the Lutetia… accommodated many refugees… fleeing from German occupied areas… among them artists and musicians…

However… when the French government evacuated Paris in June 1940… and the Germans occupied the city of Paris… the hotel was requisitioned by the “Abwehr” (German military intelligence), and used to entertain… the less than lovely officers… in command of the occupation, such as Dr. Alfred Toepfer and the French collaborator Rudy de Mérode.

At the Liberation of the… über beautiful city of Paris – in August 1944 – the Hôtel Lutetia was taken over by French and American forces, where it was used as… a repatriation centre for prisoners of war… returnees from the horrific German concentration camps… as well as displaced persons.

Among the fabulous and the famous… who entered its lovely doors were the magnetic Pablo Picasso… the flamboyant André Malraux… the high and mighty… Charles de Gaulle… André Gide… Peggy Guggenheim, as well as the… magnificent Josephine Baker…

James Joyce… wrote part of his major literary work “Ulysses“… at the hotel.

Lutetia… was acquired by the Taittinger family in 1955…

Sonia Rykiel… opened a boutique in the building in the 1980’s, and redecorated the hotel… transforming it to its early… Art Deco magnificence and splendour.

Hurriedly… heading towards the Lutetia Bar… our very special song was being played…

“Que reste-t-il… de nos amours…

Que reste-t-il… de ces beaux jour”…

My love… is waiting…

We meet…

We hold… we love…

We drink… our red… red… wine…

Hôtel Lutetia…

“J’adore”…

Toujours…

Simplement…

Nous

l’adorons“…

a.