The Ritz hotel
Paris introduction
..
The
Hôtel Ritz is a grand palatial hotel in the heart of Paris, in the
1st arrondissement. It overlooks the octagonal border of the
Place Vendôme at number 15. The hotel is ranked highly among the most prestigious and luxurious hotels in the world and is a member of "The
Leading Hotels of the World".
As of 2014 the
Ritz is closed for a major multimillion-dollar renovation.
The hotel, which today has 159 rooms, was founded by the
Swiss hotelier,
César Ritz, in collaboration with the chef
Auguste Escoffier in 1898.
The new hotel was constructed behind the façade of an
18th-century town house, overlooking one of Paris's central squares. It was reportedly the first hotel in
Europe to provide abathroom en suite, a telephone and electricity for each room. It quickly established a reputation for luxury, with clients including royalty, politicians, writers, film stars and singers. Several of its suites are named in honour of famous guests of the hotel, including
Coco Chanel and
Ernest Hemingway who lived at the hotel for years. One of the bars of the hotel, Bar
Hemingway, is devoted to Hemingway and the L'
Espadon is a world-renowned restaurant, attracting aspiring chefs from all over the world who come to learn at the adjacent Ritz-Escoffier
School. The grandest suite of the hotel, called the
Imperial, has been listed by the
French government as a national monument in its own right.
During the
Second World War, the hotel was taken over by the occupying
Germans as the local headquarters of the
Luftwaffe.
After the death of Ritz's son
Charles, in
1976, the last members of the Ritz family to own the hotel sold it in
1979 to the
Egyptian businessman
Mohamed Al-Fayed. In
August 1997,
Diana, Princess of Wales and Al-Fayed's son, Dodi, dined in the hotel's Imperial Suite before their fatal car crash.
The hotel is being entirely renovated to get the
Palace distinction. It has been closed since
1 August 2012, with plans to re-open its doors in July 2014, but the opening has been delayed to late
2015.
Because of its status as a
symbol of high society and luxury, the hotel has featured in many notable works of fiction including novels (
F. Scott Fitzgerald's
Tender Is The Night and Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises), a play (
Noël Coward's play Semi-Monde), and films (
Billy Wilder's 1957 comedy
Love in the Afternoon and
William Wyler's 1966 comedy
How to Steal a Million).
- published: 19 Jan 2016
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