Best Paris Hotels - Hotel de Crillon

The Hôtel de Crillon in Paris is one of the oldest luxury hotels in the world. The hotel is located at the foot of the Champs-Élysées and is one of two identical stone palaces on the Place de la Concorde.
The Hotel de Crillon reflects total opulence, beginning at the honey-colored marble lobby and into the adjacent gastronomic restaurant Les Ambassadeurs filled with crystal chandeliers and decorated in seven different marbles. The hotel's public salons are filled with 17th and 18th century tapestries, chandeliers, gilt-and-brocade furniture, fine pieces of sculpture, and Louis XVI chests and chairs. Its Leonard Bernstein suite, on the top floor with a wrap-around terrace that provides a spectacular view of Paris, also contains one of the maestro's pianos.

Only a few steps away from the Champs-Elysees, the Faubourg Saint Honore shopping area and all major museums, the Hotel de Crillon is the place to stay in Paris. This mythical hotel is rich in history and culture. Decorated in a Louis XV style, the hotel's 147 guest rooms and suites include Presidential apartments and the exceptional Louis XV and Leonard Bernstein suites. With 140 square meters of terrace, tall windows allowing abundant light, warm colors and wood-paneling, these renowned suites offer magnificent views of Paris, the Eiffel Tower proudly visible from a luxurious bubble-bath. Offering its guests the highest level of personalized service is the ultimate goal of Hotel de Crillon.

The gourmet restaurant Les Ambassadeurs, the former ballroom of the Dukes de Crillon, is the perfect venue for an intense and unforgettable moment. Guests can also try L'Obe restaurant with its Parisian atmosphere and creative Cuisine.

The building that is now the Crillon was constructed in 1758 after King Louis XV commissioned the architect Jaques-Ange Gabriel to build two palaces in what would become the Place de Concorde. The two identical buildings, separated by the rue Royale, were initially designed to be government offices of the French state. The eastern building remains to this day the headquarters of the French Navy, the Royale. The northern building that would become the Crillon was first occupied by the Louis Marie Augustin, Duke of Aurmont, a famous patron of the French Arts. The building was further enhanced by its second owner, the architect Louis-Francois Trouard, who had the Salon de Aigles built in 1775.

On February 6, 1778, the building was used as the venue for the official signing of the first treaties between the newly-founded United States and France. Americans Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee met French diplomat Conrad Alexandre Gérard de Rayneval to conclude the French-American treaty that recognised the Declaration of Independence of the United States and a trade agreement.

In 1788 the Count of Crillon, François-Félix-Dorothee Berton des Balbes, acquired the building for a hotel. But it was confiscated shortly thereafter by the government of the French Revolution in 1791. Two years later King Louis XVI was guillotined in the Place de la Concorde directly in front of the hotel in 1793.

Eventually the building was returned to its owner who ran it as a family business for more than a century. In 1907, the Société du Louvre took over the hotel. The building then underwent a two-year refurbishment under the supervision of noted architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur. Two neighbouring buildings on the rue Boissy d'Anglas were purchased to enlarge the hotel. The new Hotel Crillon reopened on March 12, 1909.