Hôtel Thellusson

Quartier de la Chaussée-d'Antin, France

No longer standing

Demolished or destroyed.

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The Hôtel Thellusson was a luxurious neoclassical private mansion in Paris's Quartier de la Chaussée-d'Antin, designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and built in 1778 for Marie-Jeanne Girardot de Vermenoux, widow of a Genevan banker. Sited at 30 rue de Provence within an English garden, the house opened onto the street through a monumental gate styled as a triumphal arch in the "Medici" manner. It featured a distinctive circular central courtyard with a colonnade and a rock at its center. After its owner's death in 1781, her son completed the residence. Though seized during the Revolution, the Swiss-born family reclaimed it in 1797 and hosted a notable "victims' ball" for those bereaved by the Terror. In 1802, ownership passed to Prince Joachim Murat, who in 1807 exchanged it with Napoleon Bonaparte for the Hôtel de l'Élysée and one million francs. Napoleon subsequently offered it as the Russian Embassy; Tsar Alexander I visited in 1818 and prestigious receptions were held there. The building was demolished in 1826 when rue Laffitte was extended.