A treat for some and an everyday affair for others––… Despite all its multiple faces, luxury is no less a way of life. In architecture, luxury can be adorned with centuries-old gilt furniture and moldings. But it can also have straight, simple and modern lines.

The French capital city, hitherto familiar with three or four-star places, standardized chain hotels or fanciful palaces, for coming in the past recent months, a wave of trendy buildings. Trendy is the new luxury. Recently, Paris gave birth to the Hôtel Providence.

Its young owner, Pierre Moussié, loves showing around every corner of his new four-star acquisition. But what is the secret face of the Hôtel Providence?

A luxury that confronts the collection of objects found here and there (and not only in auction sale), some treasures brought up to date as if today’s definition of luxury was to have a soul. Yes, luxury architecture is now the abandonment of standards for a personalized touch.

If you walk around in Paris’ 10th district, you will see caught between the Théâtre de la Renaissance and Saint-Martin marketplace a Louis-Philippe facade with ornamented windows and handiworked balconies. But let’s visit some of the eighteen rooms, just above a delicious Café Brasserie. Within one year of work and thanks to the complete relooking of the building by the architect Philippe Medioni, this little Hôtel from 1850 recovered the foundations of its middleclass architecture. When you get in, you delightfully can steep yourself into the abyss of the famous French characters and figures, such as Amelie Poulain and Marie-Antoinette.

The style is very warm: typical Parisian velvet (with a British touch from the famous House of Hackney) with abundant palm motifs, carpet inspired from drawings of Madeleine Castaing, stucco and beautiful massive oak flooring in some rooms and public areas, fixtures signed Hugues Rambert, while the plush furniture has been bargain-hunted with taste by its householders. We can find here and there items and trinkets borrowed from the 50’s and 70’s with strangely go well together, and clawfoot tubs as well as double separation doors which obviously evoke the old Haussmann apartments. Sometimes, some old portraits of a few centuries past adorn the velvety blue walls.

The unique ultimate touch? Customers will find in every room a real marble counter with an integrated ice distributor and utensils to prepare their own beverages. This real luxury definition, isn’t it?