Le Bristol Paris

112 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, April 1925. Hippolyte Jammet had bought and sold the Hôtel Bellevue within two years because it did not match his ambition of a hotel in the manner of the Adlon; in 1923 he bought the Castellane mansion, razed it, and built a palace on the site, architects Umbdenstock and Cassan. He named it for Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, an eighteenth-century traveller famous for demanding comfort wherever he went. Owned by the Oetker family since 1978, it is the last Paris palace still in private hands.

The house

The founding act was demolition. Jammet did not convert an aristocratic house into a hotel, as the Crillon’s owners had; he removed one and built a purpose-made palace behind a Faubourg Saint-Honoré address, on a street of embassies and the Élysée.

The Oetker family bought it in 1978 — a German industrial dynasty whose hospitality holdings also include Brenners Park-Hotel and the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc. Against Brunei at Le Meurice, the Dorchester and the Plaza Athénée, Riyadh at the Crillon, Doha at the Savoy and the Ritz London, and an Egyptian family at the Ritz Paris, Le Bristol is the only one of the Paris palaces whose owner is a family that operates hotels.

What distinguishes it

It is the youngest but one, and is called the oldest. Le Bristol’s own centenary publicity has been widely repeated. The sequence is Le Meurice 1835, Ritz 1898, Crillon 1909, Plaza Athénée 1913, Le Bristol 1925, George V 1928. The register carries the sequence rather than the claim.

The founder demolished to build. Not a conversion of an existing mansion but its replacement — the opposite of the Crillon, which is a 1758 building that became a hotel.

The name is a compliment to a difficult guest. The 4th Earl of Bristol was known across Europe for demanding standards from innkeepers. A hotel named after the most exacting traveller of his century is making a promise, not a reference.

The last private palace in Paris. Oetker since 1978, and the only one of the six whose owner is a family in the trade rather than sovereign or corporate capital.

Signature rooms and dates

Competitive landscape

Editorial note — The 1923 purchase and demolition of the Castellane mansion, the April 1925 opening, the architects, the naming for the 4th Earl of Bristol and Oetker ownership from 1978 checked against Sortiraparis and corporate history; verified August 2026. The house’s description of itself as the oldest of the Paris palaces is not supported by the founding dates of the other five and is not carried by the register.