Books by Laure Verchere

Discover the plush elegance of the Grand Hotel and Café de la Paix—a hub of cultural and café society elegance since 1862. Conjured up during Baron Haussmann’s extensive urban renewal program in the nineteenth century, and freshly renovated by master designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, the Grand Hotel and its Café de la Paix occupy a choice location among the Parisian facades surrounding Paris’s Opera Garnier. This bilingual edition retraces the history of the Belle Époque palace with its 458 rooms and suites, where visitors from all over the world meet under the glass roof of its winter garden. The Café de la Paix safeguards its authenticity by serving up iconic recipes—from the famed onion soup to the flaky mille-feuille—on the celebrated terrace that overlooks the boulevard des Capucines. In 1904, the Grand Hôtel’s head barman Franck Newman invented the original dry martini as a tribute to avant-garde actress Sarah Bernhardt, a regular guest. The café has been a meeting-place for notables from Oscar Wilde to Ernest Hemingway, Marlene Dietrich to Ines de la Fressange, and John Travolta to President Bill Clinton. Blending architecture, history, and timeless luxury, this volume celebrates the hotel and café that were at the epicenter of the most cherished era in Parisian history. 

"Simplicity and creativity. Modernity and tradition. Bringing aesthetics to technology, elegance to color, crafting harmony and rejecting discomfort. That is my ambition."Known the world over for her spectacular interiors for private residences and luxury hotels and restaurants, Sybille de Margerie has mastered the art of fine detail with elegance for over thirty years. Each project has its own identity, and her masterful designs generate emotions by creating spaces that are in harmony with their geographical locations and cultural origins. Inspired by history and great artists, de Margerie creates a language of textures that brings together the applied and decorative arts. Her interiors are refined yet distinctly livable, opulent and effortless, sophisticated and, at the same time, fluid and functional.In eight breathtaking chapters, this book celebrates a way of living that blends tradition and innovation with a distinctly French eye for luxury.