Hôtel Henri Menier

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The hôtel particulier was built between 1884 and 1887 for one of the heirs of the Menier chocolate factory, Henri Menier (1853-1913), in the immediate vicinity of the Monceau park. It is the work of the architect Henri Parent (1819-1895), who had already built some fifteen years earlier, for the father of Henri, Emile Menier, the sumptuous neo-18th century hôtel located just beside it. The exterior and interior sculptures were executed by François Gilbert (1816-1891). The Facchina workshop carried out the mosaics of the entrance and Paul Bitterlin the stained glass.

Description

The hôtel comprises a front body, at street level, intended for outbuildings, a rear body, between courtyard and park, housing the main dwelling, and a lateral body linking the two. The street façade of the front body and the two façades, on courtyard and on park, of the rear body, are in dressed stone. With their high slate roofs, their superposed pilasters and their lavish decoration, they belong to the neo-early Renaissance style. The courtyard façades of the outbuildings are in false timber framing, with brick infill. Also abundantly sculpted, they are inspired by the architecture of houses built in the Loire Valley at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century. The interior decorations, very refined, draw from the repertoire of a Renaissance understood in the broad sense, extending from the end of the 15th to the beginning of the 17th century, to which are added some Moorish accents. Above a semi-sunken basement intended for service, takes place a monumental wooden staircase, turning with two straight flights and intermediate landing. This serves first a raised ground floor where were found the reception rooms, overlooking the park: waiting room, salon and great reception hall which originally rose over two levels and comprises a monumental fireplace decorated at the centre with an equestrian figure of Henri Menier. On the courtyard side were located the dining room and the smoking room, whose Moorish decoration in enamelled lava has disappeared. The first floor was devoted to the private apartment (antechamber, master bedroom overlooking park, bathroom, rest room and second bedroom). Finally the greater part of the second floor was occupied by a photography studio, of great height, lit on the park by a glazed roof occupying the full width of the building. It has been mezzanined and partitioned and the glazed roof has been removed. From this space, Henri Menier, trained chemical engineer, could go directly, crossing the gallery-library installed in the wing, to the chemistry laboratory he had had set up on the second floor of the front body. The latter has been entirely remodelled in 1975, with the exception of the concierge's lodge. It comprised, on the ground floor, besides the entrance passage and this lodge, a tack room and a large carriage house. Its first floor was devoted to domestic servants. In order to save space, the stables were buried under the courtyard. They were lit by glass paving stones set into the pavement of the courtyard.