Nov. 11--The techno music from DJ Emmanuel S is thumping a big bass beat. You can feel it when you press your hand against the old stone in the wall of the Pershing Hall hotel, the one that was once a piece of the bridge at Chateau-Thierry captured by American troops in World War I. 

A young couple dressed entirely in black sip pastis and espresso on a balcony decorated with a big American star and the words "American Legion." The courtyard where a plaque honors Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing recently hosted a reception unveiling the fall fashion week collection of designer Anna Heylen. 

Pershing Hall, once the headquarters of America's top general in World War I and later the watering hole for generations of former doughboys, has been transformed into the hottest supermodel-filled boutique hotel in Paris. 

The path from Pershing to pret-a-porter is a twisting one. World War I had started in August 1914, but it wasn't until April 1917 that the United States came to the aid of England and France. Pershing was given the job of cobbling together an American expeditionary force that would be thrown into battle to buttress the Allied armies bled white by nearly three years of trench warfare. 

When Pershing arrived in Paris, he set up his headquarters in a 19th-century Second Empire town house on the regal Rue Pierre Charron in the heart of Paris' upper-class Right Bank. 

Eventually 2 million U.S. troops -- including a Marine brigade -- would serve overseas, seeing action at battles like Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood. 

With the fresh American troops, the war turned in favor of the Allies. Germany and its junior partners in the war capitulated on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. Despite their late arrival in the war, American troops counted 116,000 dead by Armistice Day. 

In March 1919, a group of veterans met in Paris and created the American Legion. Pershing's old command post became the group's headquarters in France, Post No. 1. By 1931, the group had 1 million members. The rules were changed in 1942 to bring in veterans of World War II. By 1946, the group had 3 million members, and those who came to Paris would stop in at Pershing Hall to swap stories and see old friends. Along the way, they raised funds to fill the building with plaques, portraits and statues in memory of the boys who went "Over There." 

Time thinned the ranks of veterans. Four years ago, the building just off the Champs-Elysees was turned over to new owners. They brought in interior architect Andree Putman, whose earlier projects included the trendy Morgans Hotel in New York City. She was charged with turning the aging clubhouse for American veterans into a sleek boutique hotel that would be a magnet for the fashion industry. 

Alongside the monuments, Putman added granite and crushed glass walkways, glass-bead curtains, zoomorphic furniture and a bar that looks like a giant ice cube. 

At the heart is a lush if vertigo-inducing 105-foot-tall garden with more than 250 kinds of plants. Putnam recruited horticulturist Patrick Blanc, a noted French horticultural researcher, to select the tropical plants and other exotic foliage that would cover what was a blank wall in the building courtyard. 

Rooms are typically small (like most Paris hotels), but come with DVD players. 

The juxtaposition of history and chic has made the inn a magnet for the fashion industry. The hotel is often full, even with a price tag that tops $350 per night. 

The European media have gone nuts over the place, calling it a revelation among the staid hotels of the City of Lights. 

"With the opening of Pershing Hall, Paris is finally getting a state-of-the-art statement hotel," wrote the Times of London. 

"Beauty, originality and love of perfection. ... Luxury has a soul," wrote the Hip Hotels France guidebook. 

London's Time Out magazine reached back for a hoary cliche -- one that the World War I soldiers would likely recall: 

"Ooh la la!" 

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(c) 2002, The Orange County Register, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.