Gone are ancient layers of age and seven layers of ceiling paint, beneath which work crews discovered lush 1910 frescoes by the artist Adrien Karbowsky, which took restorers 17,000 hours to bring back to life. Gone are the dark guest rooms, replaced with sleek and modern quarters and Calacatta marble bathrooms, reduced in number from 233 to 184, the extra space given to 47 suites with grand views. Given a hard hat and a reflector vest a few months before the hotel’s reopening, I take a tour of the Lutetia. Since the beginning, this hotel has been a reflection of what is happening in Paris and the world.” Because this is a building where there is humanity. It is very sensitive and emotional.When you are entering a house of ghosts, you can be afraid. “Even if you don’t know the history of the hotel, when you enter the building something happens. “You think when you take the corridor, you are going to turn and see a phantom,” says general manager Jean-Luc Cousty, who has served the Lutetia in various positions on and off for 20 years. I listen to the bleeding voice of Billie Holiday and recall something the actor Tom Hanks had written in his collection of short stories, Uncommon Type: “A good rule of thumb when traveling in Europe-stay in places with a Nazi past.” Within the hour, I am in love with the new Lutetia, its bright new light and whitewashed walls, its perfumed air, its glossy, burnished teak guest-room hallways, which resemble the passageways of a grand yacht, its bustling Bar Josephine, which overlooks the busy Boulevard Raspail, its cradling staff and superb cuisine. While awaiting my room, I settle into the library, a light-filled, high-lacquered salon filled with the latest picture books of the good life. Right: Many guests have taken turns at the keyboard-James Joyce specialized in Irish ballads and actor Andy Garcia has played late into the night. Left: Inside the entrance, an Art Deco mosaic invokes the hotel’s namesake-Lutetia, the Roman site that became Paris, its ancient symbol a ship sailing the seas. “Welcome to the Hotel Lutetia,” the front desk receptionist, a young man named Kalilou, who tells me he is from Mali, greets me when I check in for a four-day stay. Added into the mix was a buyer, an international real estate firm that purchased the Lutetia for nearly $190 million, determined to not only restore the old glory but to give the hotel a rebirth with a radical $230 million restoration unveiled last summer. Next, an exhibition, illustrating the hotel’s painful past, and then a companion documentary, Remember Lutetia. Then, around 2014, events colluded to tell all.įirst, there had been a best seller entitled Lutetia by the acclaimed Moroccan-French novelist Pierre Assouline. Because they were there when evil ruled the world, and the old hotel served first as a headquarters for hate and later as a haven for its victims. Owners came and went, and the darker parts of its history were recalled only in fading memories of people who didn’t seem eager to revisit the place. She was the only grand hotel on the Left Bank of Paris, a Cinderella overlooked and overshadowed by her fabulous stepsisters on the Right-the Ritz, the Crillon, the George V, the Plaza Athénée and the Bristol-which flaunted their dominance while the Lutetia remained mostly silent. Yes, she was a hotel, but I have always been in love with hotels-their history, their hospitality, their heart-and in the case of this hotel, the Lutetia, the horror. Although she had fallen on hard times, you could still see glimpses of her glory: her proud and striking face, her grand and imposing stature, the way she commanded attention from the street, like some last elegant remnant from days gone by. I saw her over the years standing on the corner, a beautiful old lady with secrets to tell.
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