Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris

Lefranc and Wybo drew the building around a sunlit inner courtyard, and it opened in 1928 with two bathrooms to a suite at a time when a single en-suite bath was rare in Paris. François Dupré bought the place in 1931, and a wing followed, its apartments let by the year or the season, their residents served by the hotel. Fourteen metres below ground the cellar occupies former stone quarries and keeps some fifty thousand bottles.

Pierre-Yves Rochon, who did the interiors for the 1999 reopening, took three years to rework all 243 rooms and suites and finished in 2025, with the hotel open throughout. He laid them out as apartments rather than hotel floors, so vestibules stand where corridors were, the dressing rooms are modelled on couture ateliers, and there are libraries and rooms to eat in, with new French windows drawing the light deeper. The smallest category on the plan starts at 37 square metres.

Balconies have been planted out into small gardens, and in the Parisian Eiffel Suite the bathroom runs to white Carrara marble with Baccarat crystal taps. The Penthouse holds the top floor, three terraces to itself, and the Eiffel Tower in front of it. A garden of white orchids meets the eye first.