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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Hotel des Reservoirs is a private hotel built in 1751 by architect Jean Cailleteau, called "Lassurance", for Madame de Pompadour, favorite of Louis XV. Located at 7-9 rue des Reservoirs in Versailles, he communicated with the castle through a covered corridor. Originally, the land housed an octagonal tower and hydraulic pump, destroyed in 1686 after the construction of ponds feeding the park basins. Upon the death of Madame de Pompadour in 1764, her brother sold the hotel to the King, who made it the residence of the governor of Versailles under the name of the government hotel.

Sold as a national property in 1794, the hotel became an inn run by a caterer named Raimbault, then a renowned restaurant in the 19th century. In 1836, a contiguous reservoir partially flooded the hotel, causing spectacular damage. Transformed into a Grand Hotel des Réservoirs in 1875 by Eugène Grosseuvre, he welcomed personalities such as Édouard VII, Zola or Proust. The building, raised two storeys at the beginning of the twentieth century, houses in 1919 the German delegation signatory to the Treaty of Versailles.

Purchased by the State in 1934 and classified as a historic monument in 1936, the hotel now hosts the departmental unit of architecture and heritage (UDAP) of the Yvelines, functional housing, and since 2006, the European School of Economic Intelligence (EEIE). Its history thus combines architectural heritage, worldly life and major diplomatic events.

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