With a location in Montparnasse it was natural for the Apostrophe to pay homage to the area’s links with literature and writers, but with subtle design and artistry

Architect: Vincent Bastie
Designer: Sandrine Alouf
Painter/artist: Catherine Feff

The Montparnasse area of Paris’s Left Bank carries a reputation laden with literary and art heavyweights: Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Picasso and Rousseau and, of course, the requisite intellects, political exiles and socialites such areas attract. It is no surprise then that the neighbourhood has inspired a ‘poem hotel’.

Owners Mr and Mrs Christian Gatien and their daughter Isabelle Lozano, who manages the Apostrophe, wanted to develop something different - something alluding to authors and literature, but without resorting to anything too literal like ‘the Hemmingway room’, Lozano explains. They found the worn out, one-star Chevreuse Hotel in the 6^th arrondissement, an area known for its publishers and booksellers, and this was the starting point for creating a radical hotel concept dedicated to writing in all its forms.

The first floor is based on traces - before writing existed - like light and shadow. The second floor is about signs and features rooms with music, calligraphy and alphabet themes. Books are the focus of the third floor, while the fourth is decorated with themes of posters, graffiti and the press, to represent writing in the city. Rooms on the top (fifth) floor embody a quotation from Jules Renard: ‘Ajoutez deux lettres à Paris, c’est le paradis’ (’Add two letters to Paris, that’s paradise’).

The hotel is a story in itself, with the 16 individually crafted rooms the chapters. Kooky as the concept may sound, it makes for a romantic and eclectic hotel experience.

For the spiral staircase, designer Sandrine Alouf photographed old tiles discovered under layers of old carpet in the hotel. She adjusted the colouring to grey and added red letters to carry on the design concept and had it printed on carpet.

She did similar work in the Traces themed room using photographs of the hotel before the renovation. The wall behind the bed is covered with a massive image of the original distressed wall; curtains are printed with images of old electrical items and the carpet is printed with old tiles. Thus the hotel’s story starts with traces of the old hotel.

Artsist Catherine Feff, who specialises in trompe l’oeil paintings, also contributed to the scheme. She decided the hotel’s facade on rue de Chevreuse should display the shadows of a tree-lined street, despite the absence of trees. And what appears to be wallpaper along the staircase is a mural mimicking the same tree shadows. Her deceptive paintings are also featured on walls in several of the rooms.

Whether the walls are streaked with staves of music or the profile of half-god Hercules, each room is enthralling, and a sense of the magical is even present in the bathrooms inlaid with special tiles - unique to each room - and other quirky details. Definitely a hotel to dream in.