History

The Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg was born from the union of two typical townhouses of Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

The first one, an elegant 18th century building located at No. 15 rue Boissy d’Anglas, became in 1830 the Hôtel Vouillemont. A scene from Proust’s novel Du Côté de chez Swann takes place there.

In this time, horse-drawn carriages used to enter the archway and turn in the courtyard which has now become the hotel lobby.

As a meeting place for the Parisian society, among which writers as Pierre Louÿs. The Hotel Vouillemont was also prized by international high society. Marie-Sophie of Bavaria, Queen of Naples, widow of Francis II of Bourbon, King of Naples and of the Two Sicilies, sister of Elizabeth of Austria, Empress Sissi, established her Parisian residence there. In the 1930s, the Hotel Vouillemont was  the property a wealthy hotelier, Albert delle Donne. His children, Robert and Marie, made it an intellectual center with their friends, the artists, authors and intellectuals as Pirandello, Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, Robert Desnos, Léon-Paul Fargue, Francis Picabia, the Prince Youssoupoff, Maurice Rostand, Maurice Sachs among many others. The famous cabaret Le Boeuf sur le Toit, then located a hundred meters higher in the rue Boissy d´Anglas, helped to make the hotel the meeting place of surrealists and of Parisian intellectual and artistic life.

Magnificent 19th century building, the second townhouse became the headquarters of the famous Marie-Claire magazine and was, for years, the meeting place for journalists, stylists and fashion photographers. Today, it remains a rendezvous of the world of fashion.

The two mansions were united and today constitute the Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg, at n ° 15 and 11 bis rue Boissy d ‘d’Anglas. What about # 13? It does not exist and the legend says that it was out of superstition towards the number 13 that the number 11 bis would have been substituted for it.