Les Bains Hotel in Paris

ParisFranceEurope

May 14

Written By

Set in the heart of the Marais, one of Paris’s most vibrant and culturally layered neighbourhoods, Les Bains sits within a district that still retains a village-like atmosphere and an excellent food scene. Surrounded by art galleries, design shops, and major museums, including the Musée Picasso, the Musée Carnavalet, and the Centre Pompidou, it is also within easy reach of Rue du Nil and its small paradise of serious eating. It’s the kind of location that quietly elevates an entire trip; everything feels close at hand, and everything feels possible.

The lobby presents a theatrical blend of 19th-century architectural elements, eclectic layering from different periods, vintage-inspired furnishings, and contemporary art installations. As you enter the building, to one side lies the Salon Chinois, a refined, atmospheric room where 19th-century Chinese stained-glass windows meet moody Chinoiserie chandeliers, a working fireplace, modern artworks, and tactile furnishings with a vintage feel. Dark panelling throughout gives the room the air of an intimate, sophisticated retreat. Its richly shadowed atmosphere, first seen in an interior design magazine, was the key factor that led us to choose to stay.

The rooms, designed by Tristan Auer, combine vintage glamour with a soft bohemian edge. They are surprisingly spacious for Paris and built around a moody, sophisticated colour palette. The décor is an eclectic mix of rich textures, with burnt-orange velvet furnishings, marble headboards, lacquered surfaces, unique lighting fixtures, luxurious linens, and small photographs of glamorous nightclub scenes from its glory days, giving the rooms a distinct identity. Our room included a large wood-panelled terrace with an outdoor shower, though the cold weather during our stay meant it remained mostly admired rather than used.

The bathrooms draw on the golden age of travel, with highly polished wood panelling, marble surfaces, and rounded vanities that recall the streamlined design language of classic ocean liners and railway carriages. A woven leather stool completes the composition. Even the corridors maintain the mood, dimly lit and cinematic, as though the building were still halfway between hotel and set design.

The Roxo restaurant and bar, with its red lacquered ceiling and undulating forms that resemble giant, suspended drops of magma, remains visually striking. The room still knows how to seduce the eye, even if the social energy no longer carries quite the same charge. The same goes for the club.

A Brief History

In 1885, Les Bains Guerbois established itself as one of Paris’s most celebrated private bathhouses. It became a gathering place for the artistic and intellectual elite of the Belle Époque, welcoming figures such as Marcel Proust and painters including Monet and Renoir. The atmosphere was luxurious, elegant, and distinctly Parisian.

By the late 1960s, the bathhouse model had faded, and the building had fallen into disrepair. Physician Maurice Marois purchased the property and later leased it to antiques dealers Jacques Renault and Fabrice Coat, who envisioned a radical reinvention.

In 1978, Les Bains Douches opened and quickly became legendary, Paris’s answer to Studio 54. David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Prince, Andy Warhol, and much of the fashion world crossed Philippe Starck’s black-and-white chequered dance floor, making the space as much a cultural landmark as a nightclub.

In 2010, structural concerns forced the club to close, and the building stood silent for several years, briefly serving as an artists’ residence.

Everything changed again in 2014, when Maurice Marois’s son, filmmaker Jean-Pierre Marois, reimagined the site as a 39-room luxury boutique hotel. Working with architects Tristan Auer, Vincent Bastie, and Denis Montel, he preserved key fragments of the building’s past, including Starck’s iconic dance floor, while imparting a new sensibility.

Today, Les Bains feels like a place where eras overlap, part glamorous hotel, part artistic refuge, part echo of one of Paris’s most storied nightlife addresses. Not everything still shimmers, but enough remains to make the past feel close.