Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Grand Hotel, today InterContinental Paris Le Grand, is a five-star palace built between 1861 and 1862 in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, near Opera Garnier. Financed by the Pereire brothers via their real estate company, it was inaugurated in great pomp by Empress Eugénie on 5 May 1862, before its official opening on 30 June. Designed for the Universal Exhibition of 1867, it quickly became a high place of artistic life, welcoming figures such as Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Oscar Wilde or Marcel Proust. His Café de la Paix, integrated from the beginning, was a cultural crossroads where writers, musicians and personalities from all over the world met.

The construction of the Grand Hotel is part of the Haussmannian transformations of Paris under Napoleon III, including the restructuring of the Opera district. The project, linked to the Pereire brothers – promoters of railways and real estate speculators – benefited from a loan of 11 million francs from Crédit Terrain. The architect Alfred Armand, assisted by Alphonse-Nicolas Crépinet, directs the work with innovative methods for the period: night electric lighting, simultaneous preparation of woodwork and furniture, and rational management inspired by railway stations. The hotel, designed for 800 rooms and 45 lounges, symbolizes luxury and modernity, with sumptuous decors signed by artists such as Aimé Millet or Jean-Joseph Perraud.

The Café de la Paix, originally intended as a name for the entire hotel, became an emblematic place of the All-Paris. Attended by celebrities such as Marlene Dietrich or Clemenceau, he was also a host of historical events, such as the 1919 Pan-African Congress organized by Blaise Diagne and W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1901 Arthur Millon, a coffee dealer, took control of the hotel and modernized its infrastructure, including the transfer of the main entrance to Scribe Street in 1905. Ranked a historic monument in 1975, the Grand Hotel was renovated in the 1980s to restore its Second Empire style, while welcoming contemporary events such as the annual Imperial Ball since 2008.

The hotel was also used as a setting for several films, including Frantic by Roman Polanski (1988) and Arsène Lupin by Jean-Paul Salomé (2004). Its architecture, marked by a Corinthian colonnade court of honour and a hemicycle dining room that can accommodate 600 people, reflects the ambition of the Pereire brothers to create a "palais pour voyageurs". The materials used – 18,000 m of carpets, 10,000 m2 of ice, 4,000 beaks of gas – bear witness to its splendour. Today owned by the Qatari Constellation group since 2014, it remains a symbol of Parisian hotel heritage.

The Grand Hotel also illustrates the economic rivalries of the 19th century, between the Pereire brothers and James de Rothschild. Their vision of luxury, inspired by Saint-Simonism, contrasted with the more utilitarian projects of Rothschild Bank, such as those of Magenta Boulevard. The strategic location of the hotel, between the Saint-Lazare and the East stations, made it a mandatory place of passage for an international clientele, particularly American and British. Its history thus reflects the urban, social and cultural changes of Paris under the Second Empire and beyond.

Future

The Café de la Paix has always been an integral part of the Grand Hotel, which was originally to be called "Le Grand Hôtel de la Paix", in the centre of the "Nouvel Opéra" district set up by the Prefect Haussmann, but this name was abandoned because of duplication! Only his café-restaurant could therefore retain the name "Peace".

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