Hotel opening on the grounds of Versailles
Visitors to France’s magnificent Château de Versailles won’t have far to go to spend the night in regal style come spring 2020.
That’s when the first hotel on palace grounds, Le Grand Contrôle, is set to open, transforming historic buildings not far from the iconic Hall of Mirrors into luxury accommodation complete with a gourmet restaurant and an indoor pool.
The property’s plans were spurred by a 2015 call for proposals to transform three 17th- and 18th-century buildings adjoining the château into a luxury hotel.
“In order to fit seamlessly into this royal setting — the only of its kind in the world — this Versailles hotel will favor an 18th-century style, with architect and interior designer Christophe Tollemer in charge of its design,” according to the Airelles Collection hotel group’s website.
The Château de Versailles, the center of royal life under the reign of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until the French Revolution in 1789, is located about an hour outside of Paris. Its 2,300 rooms spread over 679,536 square feet (63,154 square meters).
The estate of Versailles today reaches across nearly 2,000 acres (800 hectares).
And soon some lucky visitors won’t have to leave the grounds at night.
Le Grand Contrôle hotel will feature 14 rooms and apartments, an Alain Ducasse restaurant, a wellness center and an indoor swimming pool. Exclusive Château de Versailles access and experiences will be available to guests.
The hotel’s rates have not yet been released, but bookings for the new hotel will open in December.
The hotel’s name comes from one of the buildings it will occupy. The Grand Control building was built in the 1680s by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and was used from 1723 up until the French Revolution in the management of palace finances.
The hotel will offer lovely views over the parterre of the Orangery — a building that houses orange trees, lemon trees, oleander, palm and pomegranate trees in winter.
In summer, those trees are spread across the 7.5-acre (3 hectares) parterre in more than 1,000 containers, lining four elaborately manicured grass sections and a circular pool.
The hotel will have views over the Pièce d’Eau des Suisses, a vast ornamental pool excavated by Swiss Guards in the 1600s.
The Airelles Collection has three other properties: Les Airelles in Courchevel; La Bastide de Gordes in the medieval village of Gordes in the Luberon Valley; and Mademoiselle Val d’Isère, a new five-star hotel in the French alpine resort area that is set to welcome guests in December. Airelles is the luxury hotel arm of the LOV Group, a holding company founded in 2007 by French businessman Stéphane Courbit.
