Hotel of the Week: This Luxurious Retreat Is the Epitome of Parisian Elegance

Hôtel Balzac, named for the 19th Century French author, leans on low lighting and brown tones to achieve a warm, sophisticated atmosphere

December 6, 2024

Hôtel Balzac. Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Balzac

The view from the 2-bedroom suite at the top of the Hôtel Balzac leaves you in no doubt about which city you’re in. A hundred yards away is an enormous Louis Vuitton store, currently under renovation, the building site hidden beneath the world’s biggest monogrammed trunk. Behind that is the Eiffel Tower. Paris has never felt quite so on the doorstep.

The Balzac reopened in July, and is already firmly on the fashionable map. In the early winter evenings, expect to find chic couples sitting by the roaring fire in the salon, on generous sofas, playing chess. Staff from LVMH’s HQ stop by for drinks. American tourists are laden with shopping bags from the high-fashion stores in nearby Avenue Montaigne.

The lobby. Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Balzac

Its presence in the 8^th arrondissement is all part of the area’s revival. Now contemporary art galleries, including the impressive Paris outpost of Hauser & Wirth, have returned to the district. The Champs Elysées, which is just at the end of the street, is much revived after years in the doldrums.

The hotel is named for the 19^th Century French author, Honoré de Balzac, whose novels provide intricate details of Parisian life. He lived in a house that was on this site. “But we didn’t want to make the hotel about him,” says Hugo Sauzay, one half of design studio Festen who created the hotel’s cozy interior. “We wanted to make something classic, not cliché’d.”

The lobby area. Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Balzac

The bar. Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Balzac

Along with his partner Charlotte de Tonnac, they have turned what they describe as “a tacky late 1990s hotel” into a warm and elegant one, and 69 rooms into 58 rather more luxurious bedrooms and suites. The entry lobby is lined in wood with a black and white marble floor; the bar that’s hidden away at the end of the spacious salon is paneled in oak, with a ceiling finished in a high gloss burgundy lacquer. At night, its mirrored tables are the perfect spot for a mezcal-based cocktail called Illusion Perdue (or Lost Illusions) after Balzac’s best known work. In the day, you can grab an omelette or a Caesar salad.

“We thought about ourselves as the clients,” says Sauzay, of their approach. “And that it should be atmospheric.” To achieve that, they have relied on low lighting, and a palette limited to brown tones—tobacco, cognac, camel, and cream. “It’s about our love of wood above everything else,” says de Tonnac. In some bedrooms, there are even warm wood-paneled bathrooms. “They are my favorites,” says de Tonnac. “We were so lucky to have a client brave enough to accept that.”

Guest suite. Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Balzac

While some rooms adhere to old-school Parisian taste, with pale silk-lined walls, the general vibe is more 1930s and evokes the style of Jean Michel Frank, the designer who introduced chic minimalism to the French interior. Armchairs are small and upholstered in navy blue or green velvet, and geometrical lines are the order of the day. “We are trying to introduce more color,” notes de Tonnac.

Festen are very much in demand. They are working on another 10 projects in their studio in Le Marais, to the east of the 8^th. “Half residential, half hospitality,” says Sauzay. The first include apartments in New York’s West Village and Upper East Side. The latter, hotels in Mexico City and Gstaad. “But working in our home town is always special,” says Sauzay. He recalls how their very first project, after leaving the Camondo design school in 2011, was an apartment in Paris’s ultra-chic 7^th arrondissement, on the other side of the river. “It was a big deal for such a young agency. They probably hired us because we were cheap!”

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