Hôtel Louison

In the broadest terms, Parisian hotels tend to fall into three categories: the dizzyingly opulent, the avant-garde or high-concept, and those that forego the theatrics in favor of simple comfort and fine French taste. Hôtel Louison, a forty-two-room hotel housed in an 1856 Saint-Germain mansion, falls decidedly into the latter category. It consists of little more than a gleaming lobby and lounge, a tiny street-level breakfast parlor, and several stories of sunny little guest rooms. With all the restaurants, cafes, bars, galleries and shops just outside, in the heart of the Left Bank, it would be silly anyway to spend too much time on premise.

And as a place to rest between excursions, Hôtel Louison will serve you well. It’s set slightly back from rue de Rennes, just far enough to keep the noise of the bustling neighborhood at bay. Even the top-tier Prestige triple rooms are small, but across all categories the essentials are nicely presented — warm lighting, soft bedding, antique furniture on the parquet floors, plus modern amenities like free wi-fi, air conditioning and flat-screen televisions.

The hotel has something of a storied past — the characters who’ve laid their heads here are as various as the children of Louis XIV, France’s earliest aviators, and artists from the Left Bank’s bohemian heyday — but the family behind the hotel is equally focused on present-day guests. A recent, thorough renovation has lent the historic building a feeling far more contemporary than its age and its antique furnishings would suggest. Come to think of it, it’s a bit like its Left Bank neighborhood. Still plenty vibrant, neither mired in nor forgetful of its romantic past, it’s aging quite gracefully.