Le Royal Monceau, palace hotel on avenue Hoche since 1928

Le Royal Monceau is a palace hotel opened in 1928 at 37 avenue Hoche, in the 8th arrondissement. Pierre Bermond and André Junot, who had already created the Carlton in Paris and the Miramar in Cannes, entrusted it to the architect Louis Duhayon. It became a meeting place at once.

Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, Joseph Kessel and Maurice Chevalier came here. Requisitioned during the war, it housed General Eisenhower, Field Marshal Montgomery and the Allied staff. In 1946 Hô Chi Minh spent seven weeks here during the Fontainebleau conference. From 1989 to 1992 Michel Polnareff lived here for 800 days without going out, recording Kâmâ Sutrâ.

Qatar’s sovereign fund bought the hotel in 2007. In June 2008 it closed and its furniture was auctioned. Philippe Starck turned it into a place between a Parisian salon and an artist’s residence, and it reopened on 18 October 2010 as a Raffles hotel. It was named a palace in 2013.

On avenue Hoche the hotel is now called Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris. It has kept from its past a taste for artists and film: from 2011 to 2019 it housed a private screening room counted among the best in Europe.