InterContinental Paris le Grand | |
---|---|
General information | |
Location | 9th arrondissement of Paris, France |
Address | 2 Rue Scribe |
Opened | 30 June 1862 [1] |
Inaugurated | 5 May 1862 [2] |
Owner | Constellation Hotels |
Management | InterContinental |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Alfred Armand |
Developer | Isaac & Émile Pereire |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 470 |
Number of suites | 72 |
Number of restaurants | 2 |
Website | |
Official website |
The InterContinental Paris le Grand is a historic luxury hotel in Paris, France, which opened in 1862.
Le Grand Hôtel was built by the wealthy brothers Isaac & Émile Pereire and designed by Alfred Armand, who had previously designed the nearby Grand Hôtel du Louvre for them. Construction began in April 1861; the hotel was inaugurated on 5 May 1862 by Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, before officially opening on 30 June 1862. [2] [1] The hotel's construction was part of the complete reconstruction of Paris supervised by Baron Haussmann at the time and it was built in the prescribed style, with a mansard roof. Filling an entire triangular city block, the hotel boasted 800 rooms on four floors for guests, with another whole floor for their servants. [2]
The hotel has hosted royalty throughout its long history, including Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra, King Edward VII of England and Queen Rania of Jordan. Victor Hugo hosted parties at the Le Grand Hotel and Émile Zola used the hotel for the setting of the death of his tragic character Nana. [3]
In 1869, James Gordon Bennett Jr., who would soon become publisher of the Paris Herald , forerunner of the International Herald Tribune , met with Henry Morton Stanley in the hotel's Imperial Suite to convince him to make his famous journey to Africa in search of David Livingstone. [2]
Creditors of the Péreire brothers seized the hotel in 1878, and in 1887, André Million formed Société du Grand Hôtel to manage Le Grand Hotel, along with the nearby Hotel Meurice and later the Hotel Prince de Galles. [1] The Italian CIGA Hotels chain acquired the three hotels in 1972. [4]
CIGA sold the hotels in 1978 for $25 million to Limnico, a Liberia-based subsidiary of Roger Tamraz's First Arabian Corporation. [5] [6] Limnico resold the properties for $55 million just a year later, in October 1979, to Maxwell Joseph's UK-based Grand Metropolitan Hotels. [4] [7] Grand Metropolitan acquired the Inter-Continental Hotels chain in 1981, and placed Le Grand Hotel under their management. The hotel was renovated between 1985 and 1990 by noted French designer Pierre-Yves Rochon. [8]
In 1986, the hotel was renamed Le Grand Hotel Inter-Continental Paris. [9] The hotel closed in December 2001 for another major renovation. [8] Inter-Continental Hotels was reorganised as InterContinental Hotels Group while the hotel was closed, before it reopened on 5 April 2003, [8] with its name modified slightly, as InterContinental Paris Le Grand Hotel. InterContinental sold the hotel to Qatar-based Constellation Hotels in 2014 for €330 million, although InterContinental continues to manage the property. [10]
The renowned Café de la Paix has been located on the ground floor of the hotel since it opened.
Roman Polanski set much of his 1988 film Frantic, starring Harrison Ford, at the hotel. Most interiors were filmed on soundstages, but numerous exterior scenes were filmed outside the hotel.
The 9th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as le neuvième.
The Avenue de l'Opéra was created from 1864 to 1879 as part of Haussmann's renovation of Paris. It is situated in the center of the city, running northwest from the Louvre to the Palais Garnier, the primary opera house of Paris.
The Pullman Paris Montparnasse Hotel is a skyscraper hotel in the Montparnasse quarter, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, France. It is part of the Vandamme Nord mixed use complex, which is currently known by the commercial name Les Ateliers Gaîté. With 957 rooms, it is the third-largest hotel in Paris after the Le Méridien Étoile and the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile, and one of the French capital's major congress venues.
Émile Pereire and his brother Isaac Pereire were major figures in the development of France's finance and infrastructure during the Second French Empire. The Pereire brothers challenged the dominance of the Rothschilds in continental European finance, known at the time as haute finance. Their attempt was temporarily successful, and even though it collapsed in the late 1860s, it contributed to a more developed and vibrant economic landscape. Like the Rothschilds, the Pereires were Jews, but unlike them, they were Sephardi of Portuguese origin.
The Louvre Saint-Honoré building is a historic structure in Paris, occupying an entire urban block between the rue de Rivoli, the place du Palais-Royal, the rue Saint-Honoré, and the rue de Marengo, with a total floor surface of 47,000 square meters. It was originally erected in the early 1850s by the Pereire brothers who in 1855 opened an iconic hotel, the Grand Hôtel du Louvre, and an innovative street-level department store, branded from 1863 the Grands Magasins du Louvre. While the Grand Hôtel closed in 1887, the Grands Magasins expanded and kept operating in the building until 1974. From 1978 to 2016 they were succeeded by a specialized mall of antiques shops, the Louvre des Antiquaires, while the upper floors were repurposed as rented office space. Since 2020, the building's lower levels have been undergoing conversion to become the new flagship home of the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain.
The Café de la Paix is a famous café located on the northwest corner of the intersection of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Place de l'Opéra, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. Designed in the Napoleon III style by the architect Alfred Armand, who also designed the historic Grand-Hôtel in which the café is located, its florid interior decorations, historic location, and high-profile clientele have all brought it international recognition as a site of great cultural significance.
Le Meurice is a Brunei-owned five-star luxury hotel in the 1st arrondissement of Paris opposite the Tuileries Garden, between Place de la Concorde and the Musée du Louvre on the Rue de Rivoli. From the Rue de Rivoli, it stretches to the Rue du Mont Thabor. The hotel was opened in 1815. It received the "Palace" distinction from the French government in 2011. Le Meurice is owned and operated by the Dorchester Collection, a luxury hotel operator based in London. The hotel has a staff of over 400 and houses 160 rooms decorated in the Louis XVI style, which start at US$1,235 per night.
Charles Rohault de Fleury was a French architect who designed many buildings in Paris, France, in the 19th century. In his later life he wrote a number of books on archaeological and religious subjects.
Le Vendôme Beirut Hotel was a five-star luxury hotel in Beirut, Lebanon. Considered one of Lebanon's most upmarket hotels, Le Vendôme is located in the Ras Beirut district of Beirut, on the shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea.
Jean Champion was a French film actor. He appeared in 60 films between 1962 and 1996.
Groupe du Louvre is a French company, headquartered in Village 5, La Défense in Nanterre, France. Groupe du Louvre and Louvre Hotels Group was sold to Shanghai Jin Jiang International Hotels Development Co., Ltd. in 2015. The company was owned by the American investment company Starwood Capital Group, following its earlier purchase of Société du Louvre in December 2005. The range of hotel brands was extended in 2009 with the purchase of Golden Tulip Hospitality Group.
Éric Fottorino, is a French journalist and writer. He is the winner of the Prix Femina, 2007, for Baisers de cinéma. After having been a reporter for the daily newspaper Le Monde, then becoming editor-in-chief and executive editor, he was appointed president of the directory group of the La Vie-Le Monde group in January 2008. He was removed from this latter office in December 2010.
Henri Lambert (1862–1934) was a Belgian engineer and glass works owner at Charleroi near Brussels. His glass works was the largest in the world in that time. He was one of the first occupied with social economy. He spoke Walloon with his blue collar workers, which was exceptional in that time. He was a prolific writer of articles for newspaper and political journals, brochures, and books on political philosophy, and had several of his works translated into German and English. He favoured individualism, free trade, and international peace. He also wrote works about corporations, trade unions, government, democracy, and representation, voicing bold and well-intentioned ideas. But his criticism of the principle of limited liability in connection with corporations is an original point which seems to have attracted attention at the turn of the century, as well as his ideas about the organisation of trade unions. He was called upon to address lawyers' and economists' associations and other bodies.
La France was a daily financial newspaper in the 19th century. Founded in August 1862 by Arthur de La Guéronnière, the newspaper originally followed an editorial line that reconciled loyalty to Napoleon III with the reaffirmation of the temporal power of the Pope. It was bought in 1874 by Émile de Girardin, founder of the famous newspaper La Presse and a longtime collaborator of La Guéronnière.
The Westin Excelsior, Rome, is a luxury hotel on the Via Veneto in Rome, Italy. It opened in 1906.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of La Rochelle.
Pierre Renart is a French designer and cabinetmaker, who studied carpentry at the École Boulle in Paris. Among his best-known designs are the Genesis and Ribbon Collections.
Village Ivoire is a hospitality and entertainment district located on the banks of the Ébrié Lagoon, in the Cocody commune of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Its original building and centerpiece is Hôtel Ivoire, a luxury hotel. A prestige project for the young independent nation of Côte d'Ivoire, the district earned international notice for its lavish amenities, among them a now-closed artificial ice rink which was considered the first of its kind in the West African region. Shortly after its completion, a New York Times article called the Ivoire "sui generis, perhaps Africa's most dazzling hotel".
Louis Frémy was a French civil servant, politician and banker.