Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg

On rue Boissy d’Anglas, even the neighbours have impressive credentials. The American embassy is close by, the Hôtel de Crillon stands on Place de la Concorde, and Hermès has the corner at Faubourg Saint-Honoré. At number 15, the sign says Sofitel. It sounds rather more like a hotel you might book for a conference than a piece of Parisian history. Which is funny, because people were paying to sleep at this address long before the Crillon or Le Bristol became hotels.

In 1830, the eighteenth-century house became the Hôtel Vouillemont. Carriages entered through an archway and turned in a courtyard that has since become the lobby. The guests were not all anonymous travellers. Marie-Sophie, the exiled queen of the Two Sicilies and sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, lived here for a time. In the 1930s, the hotelier Albert delle Donne's children brought writers and artists into the house, among them Jean Cocteau and Francis Picabia. The name on the door has changed considerably; the address has always known how to attract company.

The neighbouring building had a different kind of celebrity. During the 1990s it housed the offices of Marie Claire, with editors, stylists and photographers coming and going. That helps explain the fashion photographs in today's hotel. Didier Gomez, who redesigned the interiors, hung the corridors with images by Horst P. Horst and Irving Penn; Cecil Beaton's extravagant ball gowns appear in the bedrooms. It could have been a theme imposed on an old building. Here, unusually, the theme was already part of the address.

The first surprise inside is daylight. A long glass roof brightens the lobby, where pale stone and gilded details make the arrival feel less formal than the street outside. The rooms are softer, in grey, ivory and blue, with the comfortable, dependable beds that are one of Sofitel's better ideas. There is something reassuring about a hotel that does not expect you to spend the first hour learning how it works. The staff know the routine, room service runs through the night, and Paris is waiting a short walk away.

But don't confuse familiar service with generous space. A Superior is just twenty square metres, although it still has a bathtub. A Luxury is twenty-five; the thirty-square-metre Premium adds a small seating area. For a longer visit, the thirty-five-square-metre Junior Suite has a useful lounge facing the quiet courtyard and a proper dressing area. At the other extreme, the seventh-floor Couture Apartment comes with a hundred square metres, balconies and its own hammam. These are not simply different sizes of the same room. Choose according to how much time you intend to spend upstairs, and whether quiet matters more than a grander address on your luggage tag.

Back downstairs, the Bar du Faubourg is an easy place to return to for a late lunch, tea or a cocktail. Maison Blossom has a pleasant winter-garden feel and a planted patio for French cooking when the restaurant is open; check the dining schedule rather than assuming it serves every evening. In fine weather, a table outside can make you forget how close you are to one of the busiest squares in Paris. The Tuileries, the Madeleine and the shops of rue Saint-Honoré are all close enough to visit without turning the day into an expedition.

There is no swimming pool and no grand spa in which to disappear. You get a gym, hammams and treatments by arrangement, rather than a palace-sized wellness world. Nor is this a small family hotel with an owner who remembers your grandparents. It is a polished, professionally run five-star hotel, often priced more gently than its extraordinary neighbours, though hardly cheap. For travellers who want Paris at their feet and a comfortable base to return to, that can be a sensible exchange.

Few guests will choose it for the history of Hôtel Vouillemont. They will choose it for a comfortable bed, an excellent address and the freedom to explore Paris on foot. That the house has seen so much is a pleasant thing to discover along the way.