Hotel De Sers Paris

Hotel de Sers in Paris exemplifies a building that fits magnificently is its new role as a hotel because the current owners’ expensive and extensive renovation retained the initial feel and the structural bones of the original mansion, and managed to insert today’s touches in a way that does not feel like a pretentious afterthought.

Today, Hotel de Sers has 45 rooms, four junior suits, two large suites with terraces that overlook all of the splendor of Paris, and one 80-square-meter apartment. The original building was a four-storey mansion designed by architect Jules Pellechet in 1880 for Henri-Leopold Charles, the latest comforts, technology and amenities to the rooms, but the new never overpowers the French classical elements.

The designer touches – such as modern, sculptural occasional tables, and chairs and cushions covered in retro-floral fabrics – and a Scandinavian, modernist feel, but it all seems to somehow belong in this environment that is resplendent with gold, and old paining and red velvet. Not an easy balance to achieve. – Tuija Seipell