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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Kinsky hotel, located at 53 rue Saint-Dominique in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, is a private hotel whose history dates back to the second half of the 18th century. Although the original building, designed in 1769 by the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux for the president of Gourgues, has disappeared, the present hotel retains remarkable elements of this period. Among them, a large living room decorated with a ceiling painted in 1779 by Simon Julien for Princess Kinský, owner of the premises in 1773. This decor bears witness to the fascist of Parisian aristocratic residences under Louis XVI.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the hotel was rented in 1801 to the English writer William Beckford, before passing into the hands of Marshal Lannes. Later, it houses the literary salon of Charles de Pomairols, reflecting his role in Parisian social and intellectual life. In 1919, the banker Louis Louis-Dreyfus acquired the property and undertook work, particularly on the façade. Requisitioned during the occupation, the hotel became a state property in 1945, and then housed services of the Ministry of Culture before being sold in 2006.

The Kinsky hotel, built on a plot of 4,137 m2 with a landscaped park of 2,400 m2 including an artificial cave and a water room, illustrates the evolution of Parisian private hotels. Its plan of the eighteenth century, its subsequent transformations (surmountation between 1862 and 1880, internal changes between 1919 and 1939) and its acquisition by the reigning family of Qatar in 2006 for 28 million euros mark its recent history. Ranked a Historic Monument in 1991, it remains an emblematic example of the Parisian architectural heritage, mixing aristocratic heritage and contemporary adaptations.

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