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Origin and history

Hotel Le Rebours is a private hotel located at 12 rue Saint-Merri, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. Built in 1624 by the architect Claude Monnard for Jean Aubery, master of requests, it was acquired in 1672 by Thierry Le Rebours. The latter transformed the facade and stairway in 1695, while the architect Victor-Thierry Dailly changed the street façade in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The hotel is distinguished by its four Louis XV-style facades, organized around a courtyard, and its honorary staircase with an intact wrought iron ramp.

The more adorned street façade features a central forebody with a cochère door surmounted by a carved key representing a bearded fauna head. Inside, the large western wing lounge retains a ceiling decorated with exposed beams decorated with garlands, rinsels and coat of arms. The hotel has been listed as a historical monument since 31 July 1990 and remains accessible free of charge to the public, offering an architectural testimony of the transformations between the 17th and 18th centuries.

The passage to the courtyard allows to admire the vestibule and the honorary staircase, whose wrought iron ramp, a rich drawing, goes up to the second floor. The mansards on the second floor vary in shape: circular pediment in the centre, lateral triangular pediments and rounded egg-eyes. These details reflect the evolution of architectural tastes under the influence of successive owners, including Thierry Le Rebours, who left his name to the building.

The hotel Le Rebours illustrates the Parisian civil architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries, marked by rigorous symmetry and careful ornaments. Its inscription as a historic monument underlines its heritage importance, while its opening to the public allows to discover a preserved example of a private hotel, characteristic of the Marais and its urban history.

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