Hôtel Lumen

For an out-of-the-ordinary luxury boutique hotel in a central location, it’s hard to beat the Hôtel Lumen. A short walk from the Louvre, the Place Vendôme and the Opéra Garnier, the Lumen is on the busy rue des Pyramides but backs onto the quiet passage St-Roch with its lovely Baroque church. The building, once a bank, has been transformed by architect Alain Daronian and designer Claudio Colucci into a stylish mixture of the contemporary and the neo-Baroque.

Colucci, an Italian designer whose former Paris projects include the wildly colorful Delicabar restaurant in the Bon Marché department store, played with the theme of light (announced in the hotel’s name) in his interior design. An immense, wavy crystal chandelier sparkles in the lobby, reflected in a wall of mirrored mosaics and in the gleaming floor of light and dark gray marble stripes. Splashes of color come from a lipstick red canapé and an alcove in the same vivid shade that shelters the hotel’s small reception desk. It’s splendidly high-design, and anything but cozy.

The designer used light to good effect in the rooms as well. Headboards are multiple ovals of pearly satin, drapes are lustrous silver velvet and plush bed coverings capture the light from glowing globes suspended from the ceiling and placed on bedside tables. Rooms are compact, but high ceilings give a sense of space and marble-and-glass bathrooms are well thought-out. Four of the smallest single rooms have a gorgeous floor-to-ceiling cascade of a chandelier tucked into a corner. From the top floor suite there’s a view of the roofs and dome of the neighboring St Roch church, and the 5th-floor suite’s two bedrooms each have a balcony. All rooms have flat-screen TVs and high-speed DSL connections; the bistrot-style restaurant, the Passage St-Roch, is open all day and room service is available.

15 rue des Pyramides, 1st, 01.44.50.77.00. 340€ website

Originally published in the February 2008 issue of France Today

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