July 12–PARIS — The only luxury hotel on Paris' Left Bank, the Lutetia, reopened for guests on Thursday after four years of renovations.
Some 200 million euros (237 million dollars) were spent on the refurbishment of the Art Deco hotel dating back to 1910.
Rooms will be available starting from 650 euros for the opening months, as the more than 400 staff hit their stride.
The hotel was first opened on the initiative of nearby Left Bank department store Le Bon Marche to accommodate wealthy clients.
In 1921, the young Captain Charles de Gaulle and his wife Yvonne spent their wedding night there.
Later, the tumults of the twentieth century saw it play host to much wider range of public figures than Le Bon Marche's owners could have imagined.
Exiled German opposition figures met there from 1935 onward, and when Nazi Germany occupied France in World War II, it was requisitioned as a headquarters for military intelligence.
It hosted survivors returning from German concentration camps after the war.
More recently, the customers included singer Juliette Greco and actor Gerard Depardieu.
