A New Luxury Hotel Just Opened on the Grounds of the Palace of Versailles
“The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.” The opening line of L.P. Hartley’s unjustly forgotten 1953 novel The Go-Between (the basis of the movie) came to mind four years ago when I heard that the French luxury brand Airelles had secured the rights to transform a venerable but long neglected building on the grounds of Versailles into a small hotel. Built in 1681 as a ducal residence, it’s an extension of the south wing of the palace; it has direct access to the Orangerie, and for most of the 18th century it housed France’s ministry of finance. Rarely does a hotel company set itself the mission Airelles has: not merely to renovate a historic edifice but to reconstitute it so meticulously that, as Christophe Tollemer, the project’s architect and designer, put it, “the 21st century would disappear—except for its comforts.”
Check into Airelles Chateau de Versailles, Le Grand Contr?le—it just opened, on June 1—and you’ll be surrounded by the late 18th century of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, that proto-influencer extraordinaire (whose proclivities helped lead to her undoing). Their taste inspired the designers, who set 1788 as their benchmark—the year Marie Antoinette renovated the Petit Trianon, her and her children’s private residence in the Versailles complex, and the year the Grand Contr?le building was last inventoried.
A supervisory committee from French cultural institutions was convened. A small army of the finest craftsmen and artisans set about salvaging stonework, parquet, and wall paneling. There was a four-year, countrywide hunt through antiques shops and auction houses to recover original furnishings and artifacts, and handpick acquisitions (90 percent of the hotel’s furniture will be period-appropriate antiques). Eighteenth-century-style light fixtures with bulbs that mimic candlelight will create, Tollemer says, “a fairytale atmosphere at dusk.”
Wall hangings and fabrics—for curtains, door drapes, upholstery—were designed by Maison Pierre Frey to allude to styles in the Petit Trianon. (Marie Antoinette favored depictions of nature, influenced by the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was having his moment.) Paint colors reflect the queen’s preferences; pastels, it turns out, were all the rage before the French Revolution. Pains were taken with the art: “We approached the grand families of France and Europe for permission to copy some of their period paintings,” Tollemer says.
Given how juste everything had to be, it’s not surprising that the hotel’s debut has been delayed time and again. When the doors open, Le Grand Contr?le will have, in addition to 14 suites (each one different), an Alain Ducasse restaurant, a Valmont spa, and an indoor pool (no, not original). But the pièce de résistance is tours and events for hotel guests only. Before and after hours, especially, you will feel that Versailles’s 2,000 acres of garden and three palaces are your private stomping ground. “This place elicits an extraordinary aesthetic emotion,” said a Versailles official back in 2011. “It will be the first time in centuries that people can sleep in this environment without being courtiers.”
I ask Tollemer which suite is his favorite. “The Necker. The scale of the rooms echoes Versailles’s apartments. The butterfly fabric is a recreation of one of Marie Antoinette’s. And the views are incredible. The bathroom overlooks the Orangerie.” The suite is named for Jacques Necker, Louis XVI’s minister of finance. Le Grand Contr?le was his residence and office, and his desk is one of the most prized objects recovered by the hotel. It was Necker who tried to persuade Louis to make concessions to the forces of the revolution before it was too late—unsuccessfully. His brief dismissal by the king contributed to the storming of the Bastille; in 1793, the king and queen were beheaded. “Imagine,” Tollemer adds, “in autumn, relaxing in the bath as the leaves turn rich shades of gold, orange, and red. Or in winter, as snow falls on the trees.”
This story appears in the April 2021 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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