Place de la Canourgue, Hérault
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Historic hotels usually mind their manners. They hang ancestors on the walls and treat the past like a museum piece that must not be touched. The Hôtel Richer de Belleval, in a seventeenth-century mansion of honey-blond stone in the old heart of Montpellier, took one look at that tradition and scattered a hundred and five brightly coloured hearts by the pop artist Jim Dine across the vaulted ceiling of its entrance hall. The house was long the city hall. Today it has twenty bedrooms and the Pourcel twins in the kitchen, and it uses its grand old rooms to throw a very good party.
The party's headquarters is the courtyard. Under a glass roof, between high walls of pale stone, deep armchairs gather around the tables of La Canourgue, the bistro, which serves every day of the week and was adopted by Montpellier almost as soon as it arrived. The courtyard also houses the art foundation, whose exhibitions are open to anyone who wanders in, and when the weather is kind, tables spill out onto the square within sight of a fountain of stone unicorns. Most grand houses keep the public at the door. This one leaves it open.
Even the staircase is in on the joke. Its ceiling, by the painter Marlène Mocquet, is crowded with herons perched along the cornices and little piles of sculpted apples, some borrowed from the botanical drawings of Pierre Richer de Belleval, the doctor whose family name the house bears and founded France's oldest botanical garden, a few streets away. Binoculars are provided for a closer look, which is not something many listed monuments offer.
For generations, Montpellier came here to get married. The old wedding hall now holds a few dining tables beneath a lantern of thousands of iridescent beetle wings, arranged into two phoenixes grappling with a serpent in honour of the city's revival after the plague. The bar upstairs is named L'Élytre after those wing cases, and its mood is somewhere between dandy and rock and roll. The vows have given way to a cocktail list, which many would consider the more dependable commitment.
Le Jardin des Sens, the gastronomic restaurant, is where the house puts on its good suit. The Pourcels' long tasting menus are a dialogue with the Mediterranean, served under an ink ceiling of the four elements, and keeping eyes on the plate takes real discipline. Breakfast, meanwhile, is laid out in the old ballroom, which turns a croissant into an occasion.
Upstairs the bedrooms calm down a little. Each one is different, with restored old frescoes above bold modern rugs, and the best of them open onto balconies over the square. It is made for people who like their history with a wink and their evenings with a little noise, and the station is a short walk away. Hushed corridors and deferential grandeur are not on offer, and the place is all the better for it.
For a century and a half, this house married the people of Montpellier. It seems to have concluded that the party afterwards was always the best part.
Past life
The city bought the mansion from the de Belleval family in 1816 to make it the city hall. When the mayor moved out in 1975 it became the labour court, until 2010.
The carriage entrance runs under a vault between stone columns, and the ceiling above it belongs to Jim Dine: a mosaic of brightly coloured hearts made with the know-how of the Sèvres factory, commissioned by the hotel's foundation. Straight ahead lies the courtyard. It is the first of five ceiling works in the house, and anyone walking in from the square can look up.
Upstairs, the room where the city held its weddings during its years as city hall is now the bar L'Élytre, named after the beetle wing cases that cover its vault in shades of green. Low armchairs and marble tables run towards a tall lit back bar. It opens every day for cocktails, wines and tapas, with a tea-time menu in the afternoon.
The Pourcels' gastronomic restaurant fills three vaulted rooms under seventeenth-century gypseries and paintings by Jean de Roy, with tall curtained windows and well-spaced round tables. Dinner runs from Tuesday to Saturday, with an à la carte menu alongside the tasting menus; lunch is served only on Friday and Saturday. Children are welcome from six, and men are asked for long trousers.
The restoration kept old wall paintings where they survived, so some bedrooms sleep beside fragments of frescoes, set against parquet, a writing desk and modern rugs. This is a Superior room, from 31 m². Each floor has its own palette, pastels on the first and stronger colours on the second; for the most historic decor, the category to ask for is Executive Historical.
At a glance
Where
Place de la Canourgue, 34000 Montpellier, Hérault; in the Écusson, the pedestrian historic centre, on a square of hackberry trees, roses and a fountain. Saint-Roch station 1.1 km on foot; Montpellier Sud de France station 8.5 km; Montpellier Méditerranée airport 11 km. Public car parks Arc de Triomphe and Foch Préfecture; valet parking
Why this one
Jim Dine's ceiling over the entrance.
L'Élytre, open every day.
Place de la Canourgue, in the Écusson.
The Edit Notes
Twenty rooms in seven categories, and the names are useful. The Executive Historical rooms, 32 to 42 m², are the ones defined by the old decor. A balcony is listed only for the Junior Suite with Balcony, at 52 m², which matters because the façade's balconies look over the square. The Pierre Suite, 101 m², is the largest. Executive rooms and Junior Suites take a third guest; Classic and Superior rooms, from 28 m², are for one or two.
The gastronomic restaurant serves dinner from Tuesday to Saturday and lunch only on Friday and Saturday, so a Sunday or Monday night in the hotel means no Pourcel tasting menu downstairs. La Canourgue, the bistro, serves lunch and dinner every day and L'Élytre is open daily, so nobody goes hungry. Fix the Jardin des Sens table first and build the nights around it. Children are welcome from six; men are asked for long trousers and closed shoes.
Place de la Canourgue sits inside the Écusson, the pedestrian old town, at the end of narrow streets and medieval steps. Drivers hand the car to the valet at the door, who parks it in a secure car park; arriving outside the valet's hours needs a call to reception first. From Saint-Roch station it is a 1.1 km walk, partly uphill through the old town; reception can arrange a transfer from the station or the airport instead.
The five ceiling works are spread through the public rooms, so where you eat and drink decides what you see. Jim Dine's hearts are over the entrance hall, Marlène Mocquet's ceramic garden over the main staircase, the beetle-wing vault over L'Élytre, an ink fresco over the vaulted dining rooms, and a painted boudoir on the second floor. A drink at L'Élytre and dinner at Le Jardin des Sens cover the two hardest to see otherwise.
The price question
The money buys a room inside a restored seventeenth-century mansion on the old town's best square, with two Pourcel kitchens, a bar and five commissioned ceilings under the same roof. It does not buy resort comforts: there is no spa or pool in the house, the gastronomic restaurant keeps a five-evening week, and the car goes to the valet. The comparison is a city break, not a country estate.
Book it for two or three nights in Montpellier with one dinner at Le Jardin des Sens and the evenings in the courtyard and at L'Élytre. Anyone wanting a pool, a garden or quiet nights out of town is better placed outside the city.
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The Extra Edit
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