We just returned from a delightful visit to Versailles, expressly to stay at the new Hôtel Les Lumières hotel.
Versailles is an easy, 40-minute train ride from Paris, and we arrived at 10:35 a.m. The hotel kindly sent a car and driver to the station to pick us up and the hotel was a five-minute ride from there.
As we pulled up to the hotel, we realized the location was ideal, as it was directly next to the palace entrance. The open-air, lobby solarium was filled with natural daylight and furnished with rattan-framed chairs with comfy, white pillows, plus beige velvet loveseats and an abundance of plants and ferns.
Thibaud Leclair (reception@leslumieres.com), the front office manager, gave us a comprehensive tour of the hotel. He told us that the building was a former private palace given to Édouard Colbert and Antoine III de Gramont by King Louis XIV. Three years ago, the 2L Collection, a small, family-owned hotel group based in France, purchased the property and did an extensive renovation.
Architect Didier Benderli was brought in to design the hotel and to achieve a balance of updating the hotel for today while still retaining the original aesthetic with inspiration coming from the opulence of the Palace of Versailles.
The theme of the hotel and its name is based on the Age of Enlightenment, a historic cultural and intellectual movement in Europe (but primarily in France) in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of France’s greatest writers and philosophers came from the period, including Descartes, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire.
The library on the main floor reflects the theme of the hotel with volumes of books from the period, plus self-care, spiritual and books from the 1900s and 2000s. Guests can ensconce themselves in plush, velvet club chairs or couches with a book or play board games supplied by the hotel.
As for the accommodations, each room is named after someone of significance from the Age of Enlightenment and our suite was named after the Montgolfier brothers, who were pioneers of the first hot air balloon in France in 1873. The suite was tastefully decorated with gray walls with white moldings, framed, antique posters with illustrations of the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloons, a king-size bed, televisions cleverly hidden inside picture frames, hardwood floors and French print throw pillows. The spacious bathroom—with a separate bathtub and shower room—was almost the same size as the suite.
One unique amenity of the room, which we have never seen at any other hotel, is a device that allows guests to meditate with different music and atmosphere settings, which they can also set the time for. Leclair also showed us a weighted blanket, which was stored in a closet, that guests can wrap themselves in to complete the meditation session along with a notebook to record their thoughts and gratitude.
Hungry for lunch after our tour, we walked up a grand stairway to the second floor to grab a bite at the Pierre Hermé café. We were dazzled by the décor of the expansive dining room, once the ballroom of the former home. Crystal chandeliers, pale pink velvet chairs and banquettes, black bentwood chairs and ornate wall moldings line the room, giving a feeling of old-world elegance yet still contemporary.
We savored a refreshing gazpacho topped with slices of beefsteak tomatoes, followed by Caesar salad with sauteed shrimp. Pierre Hermé is one of the top pâtissiers in Paris, and his sumptuous jardin Japonais pastry, with lemon-flavored shortcake and filled with lemon compote and Morello cherries, made our taste buds swoon. A separate Pierre Hermé kiosk inside the hotel offers pastries and Hermé’s famous macarons to go.
After touring the musical fountains in the gardens at the palace in the late afternoon, we had exotic mocktails named after French historic figures at The Philosophers' Bar. All spirits, wines and drinks at the bar are exclusively produced in France. The food and beverage manager shared with us that it was quite a feat to do—and the hardest part was finding a local cola matching the taste of Coca-Cola.
That evening, we dined at the concept restaurant, Table des Lumières. The award-winning chef, Erwan Le Thomas, has worked at some of the finest hotel dining rooms in Paris, including The Peninsula, Le Crillon and Mandarin Oriental. Le Thomas has chosen to execute a mostly plant-based menu, with local ingredients and almost zero waste. The chef prepares two different vegetable plates for a full meal, or guests can add either Wagyu beef, John Dory fish or suckling pig to accompany the vegetables. We had fantastic yellow and red beets in a pool of red beet sauce, accompanied by the tender and perfectly cooked beef. (Our other plate was a variation of whole carrots and carrot puree, with a delicately cooked John Dory in a light sauce.) For summer, all the desserts are fruit-based, and the peach éclair decorated with fresh peach slices was a sensation.
The compact but complete spa on the lower level, two treatment rooms, a hammam/steam room, a sauna, fitness equipment, pressotherapy and the Dream Machine for self-hypnosis. Skincare products from Beau Domaine use grapes from Brad Pitt’s vineyards in Provence to enhance the ingredients.
We sat with the general manager Jean Philippe Hubau for a coffee the next morning, and we asked him about his vision for the hotel. One of the goals is to encourage guests to stay in Versailles for two to three nights, so that they can discover all the other wonderful attractions besides the palace, including one of the best and largest food markets in France, as well as its great restaurants, museums and performances at the Royal Opera house of Versailles.
The hotel opened just before the Olympics and stood the test of international guests for the horse-riding events. At the current time, the hotel only has 11 rooms, but a building next door with nine more rooms—including a 700-square-foot penthouse on the top floor with great views of the palace—will be completed by the end of September. Good to know: Hôtel Les Lumières has already attained inclusion as a member of Relais & Châteaux.
We most appreciated the outstanding and impeccable service from the moment we arrived at the hotel until we left. The staff made us feel at ease and relaxed, like private guests in someone’s home. Benjamin Candon is the sales director, and his email is b.candon@2lcollection.com.
Before we checked out, we went to the food market and picked up summer fruits, cheeses and fresh bunches of herbs to take home. Definitely worth the stop.
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