Maison des Ambassadeurs

Steps from La Rochelle’s historic market and a short stroll from the port, Maison des Ambassadeurs is the only high-end hotel in town, though it feels more like the elegant home of an aristocratic French family. For many years, that’s exactly what it was: the upscale abode of the diplomat Albert Bodard, a native of the city who always returned to his favorite residence between stints in Mexico, Iran, Afghanistan, and China. He reportedly loved receiving guests in the elegant salons of this 18th-century house, and the social atmosphere lives on in its lively ground-level bar, where afternoon tea and apéritifs are served all day by a grand stone fireplace and tables spill out onto a pair of sunny poolside courtyards in warmer weather. In homage to Bodard’s heyday, the look is mid-century modern — rooms have parquet floors, leather headboards, vintage lamps, and antique writing desks — with a color palette inspired by the nearby ocean and salt flats, where guests are welcome to venture on the hotel’s e-bikes.