Qatari prince €100m Paris mansion plan blocked
A Qatari prince’s plan to restore a 17th-century mansion in Paris was blocked last week by a French court, after a campaign by residents who fear the plans would destroy an architectural gem.
Locals obtained a court order to stop the work by Prince Abdullah Bin Abdullah Al-Thani, brother of Qatar’s emir, who bought the Hotel Lambert on Ile Saint Louis, an island on the River Seine and a UNESCO heritage site, in 2007. However, the Prince – who paid a rumored 60 million Euros for the property two years ago – insists his proposed plans will restore the building to its former glory.
It also involves digging an underground car park and machinery room under the central courtyard and part of the gardens, raising an external wall facing onto the banks of the Seine and an overhaul of the entire west wing.
Built in the 1640s at the eastern tip of Ile Saint Louis, the Hotel Lambert was designed for a rich financier, Nicolas Lambert, by the architect Louis Vau, who went on to oversee an expansion of the Chateau de Versailles for Louis XIV. The building, which is where Chopin composed some of his music and author Voltaire lived with his mistress, is severely dilapidated, with parts of the timber structure rotting away, paint cracked and discolored and staircases sagging.
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