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Origin and history

The Massa hotel, built between 1777 and 1779 by architect Jean-Baptiste Le Boursier, was originally a neoclassical "madness" located on the current Avenue des Champs-Élysées. He was commissioned by Denis-Philibert Thiroux de Montsauge, a post manager and receiver of finance, and served as a framework for galante celebrations, including the love of the Duke of Richelieu. Thiroux, who had died in 1787 but had not lived there, was perhaps the noun for an anonymous sponsor, some of whom referred to the count of Artois.

The hotel changed ten times in 73 years. Sold in 1788 to the Duke of Richelieu, who installed the Slaves of Michelangelo (today at the Louvre), he was seized as a demigré in 1793. Purchased by Bonaparte in 1802, he was rented to the Italian ambassador Ferdinando Marescalchi, who received Napoleon there in 1809. After 1815 he passed into the hands of the Countess of Durfort, the Countess of Juigné, and then the Count of Flahaut, before being acquired in 1853 by Baron Roger and the Duke of Massa, whose nephew reopened the shutters in 1919 after 49 years of symbolic closure.

Threatened by demolition in 1927, the hotel was rescued by Théophile Bader (Galeries Lafayette) and André Lévy, who completed his stone-by-stone trip to the 14th arrondissement, in a park detached from the Observatory. Ranked a historical monument, it was rebuilt in the same way between 1928 and 1929 to accommodate the Society of People of Letters (SGDL), which installed a classified Art Deco furniture. The garden, adjacent to that of the Observatory, and the salons have been home to literary memories covering 170 years of history.

The building, accessible by 38 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques, retains a neoclassical main façade and an interior decorated with original panelling and parquet floors. Its history reflects the political and cultural upheavals of Paris, from the Enlightenment to the inter-war period, while its Art Deco furniture, commissioned by the masters of Galeries Lafayette (Dufrêne, Jallot), bears witness to the craftsmanship of the 1920s. The SGDL, founded in 1838 by Balzac, perpetuates the memory of French writers.

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