I was amazed that the idea of combining retail with lodging is 110 years old. In 1910 the management of Le Bon Marché department store, which had been founded by Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut in 1852, decided to open a hotel for their most favoured customers, but instead of calling it Le Bon Marché they named it Lutetia, the original Roman name of Paris. Obviously, the store was doing well. Sculptors Léon Binet and Paul Belmondo, father of Jean-Paul, were commissioned to decorate the façade in Art Nouveau style. Now, all these years later, the 184-room hotel’s seven-floor exterior is as iconic worldwide as is, in a different way, Frank Gehry’s design for the Elciego Marques de Riscal hotel.