Hôtel Raphael, hotel on avenue Kléber since 1925

The Hôtel Raphael is a hotel built in 1925 at 17 avenue Kléber, in the 16th arrondissement, a few steps from the Arc de Triomphe. Léonard Tauber and Constant Baverez, who had founded the Regina in 1900 and the Majestic in 1908, had it built by the architect André Rousselot and named it after the painter Raphael.

From the 1930s the Hollywood studios, whose offices stood nearby, lodged their actors here: Ava Gardner, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn during her six Paris shoots. Serge Gainsbourg stayed for months at a time and wrote songs at the counter of the English Bar, over a Gibson.

Constant Baverez died in 1935 and his son Paul took over, followed by Françoise Baverez and her daughter Véronique Valcke. The same family has run the house for four generations. The Raphael has kept most of its original décor and furniture, and the granite chessboard of Léonard Tauber, president of the French Chess Federation, stands on the terrace.

On avenue Kléber the hotel has 54 rooms and 29 suites, a bar, a restaurant and, on the seventh floor, a terrace facing the Arc de Triomphe. Closed for renovation, the Raphael reopens in 2027.