Vincent Darré opens Le Magnifique, a 62-room Paris hotel from €179
Floors are themed on the zodiac, Atlantis and a utopian cityscape, and the basement pool is lined with mosaics made with Bisazza.
Le Magnifique, a 62-room hotel imagined by the interiors designer and artist Vincent Darré, has opened in the heart of Montparnasse in Paris. Prices start at 179 euros for a classic room. The full address is 20bis Rue de la Gaîté, 75014.
The building was once home to the Milles Colonnes theatre, which opened in the 19th century. Darré has turned it into a whimsical ode to the Left Bank's golden age, where the love of theatre, cinema and the art of décor come together in one building.
Darré grew up nearby and dined at La Coupole every Sunday as a child. He conceived the hotel as an homage to the arts once vibrant in the 14th arrondissement, an area long overshadowed by trendier neighbourhoods. For him, hospitality is dramaturgy, visible from the foyer.
The name comes from the horse in Jean Cocteau's cinematic fairy tale. Would-be riders must say, "Go where I am going, Magnifique, go, go, go," to be taken away. Cocteau returns later in the building, among the artists honoured on the attic wallpaper.
What the ground floor looks like
The foyer answers first: monumental hands curl around the colonnades, a nod to the ones in the Slavik-designed Drugstore Saint Germain that fascinated Darré as a child. Straight on is reception, where old-fashioned brass keys dangle from crimson tassels. Guests meet both on arrival.
A hand-painted fresco with a naïve depiction of the arts, circus acts included, climbs the stairwell, and the bannister is modelled on a musical score. In the reception area, the wraparound check-in counter stands under a painted ceiling that evokes a permanent matinée.
Antique busts wearing coral headdresses are sketched on the walls, an homage to Darré's collaboration with the late Pierre Le-Tan. A mirrored stairwell leads down to the lower level, where the swimming pool has pride of place, its walls adorned with mosaic panels.
The mosaic panels were developed with Bisazza and evoke a garden filled with antique statuary. The patio's lattice-like treillage was made by artisans who usually work on the Trianon trellises at Versailles. The fitness area is decorated with Roman-style depictions of sports.
Also on this lower level, below reception, is the Picabia, the establishment's bar, named after the artist. It has a piano, and it promises to become a hub for the area's theatregoers, a role that suits a building with a theatrical past.
Floors that read like chapters
Each floor is a separate chapter. Under the eaves, where Darré imagines bohemian painters and poets might once have lived, the rooms become intimate ateliers. Their wallpaper carries his sketched homages to works by Sonia Delaunay, Wassily Kandinsky, Armand Brac, Tsuguharu Foujita and Pablo Picasso.
Custom-designed headboards and mirrors on every floor have irregular outlines, which make them look like surreal stage sets. Darré chose toile over conventional wallpaper, a rare choice that evokes artists' canvases. Dressed in his colour-filled drawings, the fabric adds depth and warmth and softens sounds.
Bird-shaped signs lead downward to a floor devoted to the zodiac, with constellations underfoot and on every surface. The next floor down is a version of Atlantis that owes as much to mythology as to Jules Verne. Serene rooms follow, their watercolour-like walls recalling Henri Matisse.
Another floor is a utopian cityscape, where Darré used décor to correct the building's quirks. Oddly placed windows, the result of newly created doors and usually a headache for a designer, are camouflaged within trompe-l'œil architectural motifs, turning a potential flaw into part of the fantasy.
Every corner was decorated, right down to the sheer curtains, which Darré admits to loathing. He turned them into hand-drawn storybook scenes filled with floating motifs, hints of distant cities and temples. He described the rooms as "designed for dreaming with eyes wide open."
The artisans behind the fantasy
Darré reeled off the craftspeople like an ensemble cast. Ceramicist Marie Martin made tiles for the elevator, and sculptor Erwan de Rengervé created the three-dimensional birds that adorn the ceilings. Atelier Poulaillon supplied wallpapers, and Joël Daguerre is behind the great starry-sky fresco.
At a recent press visit, fashion and lifestyle insiders including Clara Sant and Vanessa Seward wandered through a dreamscape of constellations, exotic animals and sky-lit salons. Darré said: "Travelers will get a trip, and they won't even need to leave their rooms."
What matters to Darré in hospitality is a sense of place. He imagines an out-of-town visitor stepping in and feeling Paris immediately, with its memories, myths, cinema and artists pressed against the walls. Darré wants it to be more than a bed for the night.
A guide to the Rive Gauche is already in the works, pointing guests to nearby gems such as the Musée Bourdelle and the Giacometti Foundation. The hotel's listed telephone number is +33 1 40 47 48 49.
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Images: Le Magnifique
