Paris, France

Hôtel des Académies et des Arts

Price per night from$235.77

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR198.90), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Hôtel des Académies et des Arts Photos

Style

Montparnassian muse

Setting

Artists’ enclave

Explore

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Situated on the same Paris street that was once home to Gauguin and Modigliani, Hôtel des Academies et des Arts is a homage to the artists who once painted this part of the town red – and continue to do so. This 20-room hotel is the epitome of Left Bank chic, but that doesn’t mean it’s shambolic – standards and service are every bit as high-end as at the city’s grand five-stars.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A VIP amenity in your room on arrival — either a half bottle of wine or some macarons

Facilities

Photos Hôtel des Académies et des Arts facilities

Need to know

Rooms

20.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More details

Rates don’t usually include breakfast (€22 a person). It’s a Continental buffet that changes seasonally; mainstays include pastries from the local boulangerie, pancakes, fresh fruit, smoked salmon, eggs and cheeses.

Also

All of the common areas are wheelchair accessible, as is one of the Deluxe Rooms, which you can book on request.

At the hotel

Art studio, paid laundry service and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV, minibar, tea- and coffee-making kit, climate control, bathrobes, slippers and Grown Alchemist bath products.

Our favourite rooms

The decor at Hôtel des Académies et des Arts is elegantly simple, borrowing from art deco and mid-century-modern styles. Cream walls are offset by furniture in dark-stained oak and fabrics in khaki browns and greens. The Deluxe Rooms are the most spacious, with a sitting area and large windows overlooking Les Invalides. Although slightly smaller, the Superior Rooms with Terrace are equally enticing, with French windows that open onto a furnished outdoor space, tiled in grey zellige and surrounded by bamboo and boxwood.

Packing tips

Look the part in the hotel’s painting workshops by donning a bleu de travail, the classic French work jacket worn by many a 20th-century artist.

Also

Some of the artwork on display is for sale; swing by reception if anything catches your eye.

Pet‐friendly

Dogs are welcome at Hôtel des Académies et des Arts for a nightly fee of €25. See more pet-friendly hotels in Paris.

Children

All ages are welcome at Hôtel des Académies et des Arts, but the hotel isn’t specifically geared towards little Smiths. Book the Family Room, made up of two interconnecting rooms, each with a double bed.

Food and Drink

Photos Hôtel des Académies et des Arts food and drink

Top Table

Go for the table by the window, where you can watch the Montparnasse street life flow by.

Dress Code

Informal; come as your most distinct and idiosyncratic self. You’re across the road from an art school, after all…

Hotel restaurant

There’s no restaurant at the hotel, but staff will happily offer their favourite local recommendations. In the mornings, a Continental breakfast is served in the atelier; for the rest of the day, you can help yourself to snacks — including canelés and madeleines from pâtissier Kevin Lacote — at the honesty bar. 

Hotel bar

Help yourself to hot drinks, kombucha, beer and wine at any time of day or night.  

Last orders

The honesty bar is open around the clock.

Location

Photos Hôtel des Académies et des Arts location
Address
Hôtel des Académies et des Arts
15 Rue de la Grande Chaumière
Paris
75006
France

Hôtel des Académies et des Arts is in Montparnasse, a bohemian Left Bank neighbourhood in central Paris.

Planes

Most international flights land at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, a 45-minute drive from the hotel. Paris-Orly is closer, served by domestic flights and select international carriers. If traffic plays nicely, a cab from Orly can have you at the hotel in just over 20 minutes.

Trains

International services arrive at Gare du Nord. From there, take a taxi (around 30 minutes) or Metro line 4 to Vavin, a minute’s walk from the hotel. The closest regional train station is Montparnasse, a five-minute walk from Hôtel des Académies et des Arts.

Automobiles

From your launchpad in central Paris, put yourselves in the hands of the capital’s well-connected public transport system; you’re unlikely to need your own set of wheels. If you do drive, you’ll need to find paid parking locally.

Worth getting out of bed for

Hôtel des Académies et des Arts is across the street from the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, the art school attended by cubist Fernand Leger and expressionist Bernard Buffet. They run the hotel’s creative workshops in drawing, sketching, sculpture and photography, all held in the creative studio. Brush up on your knowledge of the local talent at the nearby Musée Bourdelle, showcasing the work of French sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, a contemporary of Rodin. At the Musée Zadkine, you can survey the life’s work of its namesake Franco-Russian artist, a former Montparnasse local and friend of Henry Miller. For a stroll among esteemed company, try the tree-lined Cimetière du Montparnasse, the final resting place of Charles Baudelaire, Serge Gainsbourg, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Nearby Rue Daguerre is a rare surviving example of a Parisian market street, perfect for mooching and lined with bakeries, boutiques, wine shops and pavement cafés. 

Local restaurants

No stay in Montparnasse is complete without a pilgrimage to La Crêperie de Josselin, where the buttery Breton snacks are served in a dining room with dark-wood panelling and lamps shrouded in lace. Playing into the French love for steak, Latin American restaurant Paris Bogota hits the mark with its juicy Argentinian fillets, tangy Peruvian ceviche and Colombian empanadas. Diminutive fine-dining spot Montée can easily fly under the radar, with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it entrance on Rue Leopold Robert. Kobe-born chef Takayuki Nameura cut his teeth in Japan before uprooting to the French capital, where his pared-back tasting menus have garnered acclaim for their novel approach to Gallic cuisine. 

Local bars

Open since 1962, cocktail bar Le Rosebud was once a favourite drinking hole of writers Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. It’s hardly changed in the decades since, with white-jacketed barmen mixing sidecars and old-fashioneds until the early hours. 

Reviews

Photos Hôtel des Académies et des Arts reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this artist’s retreat hotel in Montparnasse and unpacked their sketches made in the hotel’s drawing workshop, a full account of their city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hôtel des Académies et des Arts in Paris… 

Montparnasse has always had a creative streak. It’s right there in the name, coined centuries ago by poets who would gather on a hill just outside old Paris, likening it to Mount Parnassus, home of the Greek muses. In the 1920s, when the neighbourhood smouldered with the white heat of inspiration, you might see Marc Chagall or Man Ray swilling drinks at café La Coupole, moments from where Hôtel des Académies et des Arts stands today. 

Not one to rest on historical heft alone, the Hôtel des Académies is a bona fide artists’ retreat. The rooms fizz with imaginative flair, filled with the work of French artists such as Franck Lebraly, whose murals are reminiscent of Jean Cocteau’s surrealist sketches. You can join workshops in painting, sculpture or academic drawing, led by teachers from the art school across the street. Best of all, it has that laidback, come-as-you-are kind of ambience that epitomises the Left Bank, where idiosyncrasy and independent expression are sacrosanct. 

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Price per night from $215.74

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