42 - Turning Back The Clock at the ...

HOTEL LANGLOIS, Paris




The Langlois by night, the rue St. Lazare looking like something right out of a movie set (photo Martin Woods)

 
     Every once in a while, I receive a nightmare request:  to recommend an inexpensive, charming Parisian hotel with good-sized rooms and reasonably modern amenities; in a central, picturesque neighborhood; and preferably with U.S. news channels and free WiFi.

Experience has taught me that this is pretty nearly an impossible task.  Looking  back over the years, I would say that those neighborhood hotels I have reserved for friends have more often than not been met with disappointment.   

Once, a comfortably fixed North Carolinian whom I had put up in a 80-dollar (that was his limit) neighborhood hostelry complained to the desk clerk that he had received infinitely better service when staying at the Ritz!   Like, HELLO?  

The problem with recommending bargain hotels is that they are so subjective:  one person’s paradise can be another’s hell. 

  I remember years ago reading an Esquire interview with Jerry Lewis, who insisted he would never consider staying at any hotel in Europe other than the Hilton because –no matter what country he found himself in-- he could be certain that the room would be rigorously identical.  This interview turned me against Jerry Lewis for life, as it made him seem so foolish.  I can’t think of anything less appealing than a hotel which boasts all of its rooms to be identical.

I was  recently looking for a convenient place to house my Amsterdam friends, Martin and Marina, when I stumbled upon the Hotel Langlois.   Bingo!  I wonder if I haven’t uncovered that rare bird which just might fit a lot of travelers’ criteria! 

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY --Arrival of Marina (center) and Martin last month.
Martin was one of my earliest Parisian friends, and it was here 
at the Gare du Nord that their romance began some 37 years ago.

 Years ago, I was aware of what was then called “Les Croisés,” but  it was so discreet that I wasn’t even sure it was a hotel.   I had often noticed the elegant chandeliers at night, but wondered if it wasn’t some sort of private club.  I once met someone at a dinner party who told me that it was a special hotel of charm and distinction. 

Then I kind of forgot about it.  Though just around the corner, I don’t actually have occasion to walk by often, and had never seen the establishment first hand until a few weeks ago. 

 When you enter the Langlois today, it’s like walking into a time machine.  It could have beautifully served as one of the sets for Woody Allen’s delightful fantasy, “Midnight In Paris” where he found himself periodically transposed into 1920’s Paris.

Details from another era

Built in 1876, first as a bank, it transformed itself into a hotel shortly before the turn of the century.  For the next 100 years or so, it was certainly one of those rather refined, elegant middle-level hotels that appealed to ladies of “good family” in from the provinces and businessmen of a certain standing.

 There were many such hotels at the time of its creation, scattered across Paris and all over France.  By the 1950’s, these “bourgeois hotels,” as they were sometimes called, were still to be found with a little effort, but with the passing years, fewer and fewer in Paris resisted the call of chain groups or more lucrative uses of the real estate.

Which leads me to a rather extraordinary conclusion:  I wonder if the Langlois isn’t today just about the only hotel of its kind left in Paris.

View of an interior courtyard

 With its marble fireplaces, charming old oil paintings, wood-paneled wrought iron elevator, various art-nouveau and art-déco furnishings, and a myriad of quirky bric-a-brac, you get  more a feeling of being in a country home than in a big city hotel. 

Eleven years ago, the filmmaker Jonathan Demme (“Philidelphia" and “Silence of the Lambs”) was scouting out a location for a remake of the 50’s Audrey Hepburn-Cary Grant hit, “Charade", when he came upon what was then the Hotel Croisés. 

A stylish Grant leaving Claridge's in London (Google)

The film, “The Truth About Charlie” starred Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton.  It had a big budget, and seemed to have the ingredients for another international success.  

As it turned out, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn were sorely missed, and  "Charlie" was a resounding flop.  Neither it nor its hotel setting were destined for any kind of lasting place in movie history. 

Plenty of room in Martin and Marina's old fashioned bathroom (photo by Martin Woods)

Hotel director Ahmet Abut (see sidebar) was delighted to rent out the entire building for the five weeks of shooting.  Wahlberg chose to stay at the Four Seasons, but many of the cast and crew moved into the hotel.  Abut, who looks back on the adventure with nostalgia, received a screen “thank you” in the closing titles.  

One of the hotel's three suites (Langlois photo)

"It was an unforgettable experience, and the film's failure at the box office was a shame, but it doesn't really matter.  It was still Jonathan Demme; he is still an important ... a great director," he said.  

"And it left beautiful memories for me and a wonderful trace in the history of my hotel."  

Abut was so pleased with the new insignia for the fictitious "Langlois" of the film that he decided to keep it and adopt its name for his establishment.  So, for the last decade the hotel boasts signs for both the Langlois and the original "Croisés."  

If you are looking for new and modern and trendy, then this is certainly not the place to go.  However, if you are attracted by a sort of authenticity, a genuine peek into what was once considered the “real” old France, then this charming old hotel is probably for you. 

And Martin and Marina were happy there.  At least I hope so.

Check-in (Martin at right)

SIDEBAR:  Ahmet Abut

Abut with Madame Bojena, the Langlois' house manager

When I first met Ahmet Abut recently in the Langlois' little lobby, he was keyed up with an almost childlike exhilaration from a recent auction acquisition.  

He could hardly wait to show me his latest buys, two beautiful wood-carved art-nouveau chairs, already very much at home in one of the hotel's second floor front rooms.  He had also recently bid on a  fine 1930's stained glass from a transatlantic company vaunting English Channel crossings, which now discreetly graces a little nook off from the reception desk.

An habitué, myself, of the Drouot Auction House, I had noticed  Mr. Abut there over the years, but generally he would be scouting out more prestigious sales, and our paths never officially crossed.

 His is an overflowing enthusiasm for the Langlois.  In addition to running

the 27-room neighborhood hotel, Abut is a procurer/buyer of fine art for the Pera Museum in Istanbul, which is the more official reason for finding himself most days at Paris’ auction houses.  At the same time that he looks for his museum, he is also scouting the sale rooms for special pieces to enhance his hotel.

 “Every new purchase puts into value this beautiful property,” he says with a contagious passion for his later-life profession.  He claims to put most of the profits back into the hotel with a constant search for pieces of quality, trying to find that rare object “which will illuminate or even transform one of my rooms.” 

A native of Turkey and Parisian since 1970, Abut has directed the Langlois for the last 15 years.  “You have to always remember that a hotel room must replace the guest’s whole house, so I do everything to make it comfortable and attractive," he said.

Flower boxes ouside second floor rooms

“The Langlois is not a palace, but each room has a soul of its own.  The world is constantly changing, but I try to make sure that the Langlois retains its charm. 

"Our guests have chosen us, and I must be up to the challenge of this compliment, so that the client will want to come back and stay at the Langlois again.”  

At 70, Abut has no thoughts of retirement.  “I have no interest in it.  I have always done what I loved in life, and I’d like to continue.  I have a passion for art, for archaeology, and for this hotel.  Why would I want to stop?

“I have only one wish, that is to die one day –certainly not in my bed, asleep!-- either at the auction house buying a painting or here working in my hotel."  

He paused for dramatic effect, then added:  "That is my wish, but not for another 25 or 30 years if possible.”

 

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Teensie Misbehaves at The Connaught"

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Martin and Marina were also mentioned in blog No. 22, "Duplicate Ticketing" Jan. 25 (to access, click on above title).