Leonard Tauber planned that his hotel de voyageur should cater for discerning visitors from all over the world. In his 1910 brochure Hotel Majestic Paris he wrote “…on peut affirmer que toutes les familles aisées, de passage à Paris, y trouveront des avantages qu’elles ne peuvent rencontrer dans aucun autre hôtel de premier ordre.” [1]… Continue reading The Sound of Gunfire
Category: The Making of the Peninsula Paris
Postcards Home
In1911, as the Majestic celebrated its third anniversary, the hotel was full and business brisk. According to the famous Ward, Lock & Co’s Paris and Environs guidebook Tauber’s hotel was ranked as a Series I hotel (“most luxurious and expensive”) alongside The Ritz and Meurice, both of which were much older, The Ritz having opened… Continue reading Postcards Home
The Golden Years
n an early spring day the roofline of the Peninsula Paris looks much as it did on March 1st 1908, when Leonard Tauber’s Majestic Hotel opened its doors for the first time. The pink light of dawn plays across the masonry, giving it a golden glow and as the sun rises further a hint of… Continue reading The Golden Years
The Baron and The Count
he Peninsula Paris is a paradox, being the newest of the Peninsula hotels (as of 2014) and the second oldest. As a Peninsula hotel, the property’s history has only just begun; as a building, Number 19 Avenue Kléber’s history stretches back to Napoléonic France and the Hausmannian renovation of the city. These competing currents are reflected… Continue reading The Baron and The Count
Digging Deep
hen guests walk the corridors of the Paris Peninsula the loudest noise is likely to be the sound of their own breathing. Maybe they will hear a door close, softly, like a kiss. Or a footman will come past carrying a tray draped in white linen, silver and porcelain floating in its midst. The corridors… Continue reading Digging Deep
A Royal Address
ueen Isabella took up residence on the site of today’s Paris Peninsula in 1868, the same year she was exiled from Spain by the so-called “Glorious Revolution” which created the First Spanish Republic. Isabella’s reign as Queen Regent, from her infancy in 1830 until her exile, had been a period of tumult, the reactionary Spanish… Continue reading A Royal Address