8 rue du Professeur Pierre Marion, Rhône
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Nearly two thousand years ago, a Roman called Iulianus, or possibly Iuliana, kept a house with private baths on the hill of Fourvière, high above Lyon. A fragment of marble reading in domo Iuliani is about all that survives, along with the foundations of the baths, and the stone breaks off at exactly the wrong letter. Villa Maïa stands on the same ground, and in its own way it is the same idea again: a house with baths, built for a few people at a time.
Like any good house, it gathers in its sitting rooms: a library over the gardens, all books and deep burgundy chairs, and a bar upstairs whose windows fill at dusk with Lyon switching itself on below. The staff work to a motto of their own, that kindness is not a weakness, and it shows: service is warm without ever hovering, and a drink tends to arrive before anyone has thought to ask.
There are only thirty-four rooms and suites, which keeps the house quiet even when it is full. Jacques Grange decorated them with an almost Japanese restraint, and the bathrooms are Carrara marble, many with tubs deep enough to disappear into. Most rooms look over the gardens. The ones facing the city are worth asking for: on a clear day the view runs over the roofs of the old town towards the Alps, and from the apartment at the top as far as Mont Blanc.
Iulianus would recognise the floor below. The heated twenty-metre pool lies under arches of pale stone, on a black-and-white marble floor that reproduces a mosaic found on the site, with a jacuzzi at its heart and a hammam and a sauna beside it. Outside, Louis Benech has laid out the garden in terraces, planted more for looking at than for walking through. Late afternoon, between a morning of museums and an evening out, is the hour to use all of it.
As in most private houses, the kitchen keeps things simple, with a short menu of its own. The real dinner is next door, with Christian Têtedoie, a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, whose restaurants run from a bistro to a gastronomic table and a rooftop in summer. Few houses can say as much of the neighbours.
A house on a hill asks for a little effort. The Roman theatres are a short stroll away, but the lanes down to the old town are steep, and the way home after dinner in Vieux Lyon is a climb. Evenings here tend to end quietly, in the bar or in the bath. Villa Maïa is for travellers who would rather stay with a generous friend than in a grand hotel; anyone who wants a lobby humming with life will find the house almost too calm.
Iulianus had the hill, the view and the baths. What the Roman never had was a cook of that calibre next door. There, at least, the houseguests have done better than the owner.
Underfoot
The black-and-white marble checkerboard around the pool reproduces a mosaic found on this very spot during the excavations made before the hotel was built.
The bar is on the second floor, built in Saint-Just glass and polished nickel and turned towards the city, so the lights of Lyon come up below at dusk. The house cocktail carries Villa Maïa's almond scent, plates are made for sharing, and the wines include Château de La Chaize, the owners' Beaujolais estate. The library next door has its own terrace over the gardens.
Bathrooms are in Carrara marble and polished nickel and open onto the bedroom through glass partitions, so the bath shares the room's light. Floors are heated, and depending on the room there is a shower, a bath or both. Beds are 180 or 200 cm wide, twin beds on request. Every room category has a private terrace; the standard rooms face the gardens.
From the hill, Lyon spreads out below: the Saône and its bridges, the roofs of the old town, the towers of La Part-Dieu in the distance. The standard rooms face the gardens, so a city view has to be requested when booking. The bar on the second floor and the apartment's terrace look this way, and after dark the city lights up beneath them.
The apartment is the largest space in the house: 100 m² of rooms opening one into another, with a terrace and the city at the foot of the hill. The hotel gives its view as reaching Mont Blanc, over the Saône and the Rhône. Unlike the other categories, its bar is included on the day of arrival, alcoholic drinks too.
At a glance
Where
8, rue du Professeur Pierre Marion, 69005 Lyon; on the hill of Fourvière, on the former Antiquaille site, near the basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, the Gallo-Roman theatres and the old town; views over the city, the Saône and the Rhône
Why this one
Twenty metres, 34 rooms.
Christian Têtedoie next door.
Garden side or city side.
The Edit Notes
The view decides the category more than the furniture does. The 27 rooms, 30 to 35 m², each have a private terrace looking south over Louis Benech's gardens; a view over the city is offered only in some of them, on request and subject to availability. The six suites, 60 to 65 m², all add a living room and a terrace facing Lyon. For the long view over the roofs, the rivers and, on a clear day, Mont Blanc, the 100 m² apartment is the surest choice.
The hotel has no restaurant room of its own on the scale of a dining room: there is a short menu of Lyonnais dishes and room service around the clock. For a proper dinner, Christian Têtedoie's house stands a few doors along the same street and runs three tables, a gastronomic restaurant, a bistrot and a rooftop, each booked through Têtedoie rather than the hotel. Fix the table and its date first, then book the night around it; the hotel's own menu is a fallback, not a dinner plan.
Pool, jacuzzi, sauna, hammam and the fitness room are included for hotel guests and need no booking on the hotel's pages. The spa is different: it sits at the end of the garden with only two treatment rooms, run by Belle de Maïa, and it also takes visitors who are not staying at the hotel. Anyone who wants a massage on a given afternoon should reserve it when booking the room rather than on arrival, since a short weekend can fill both rooms quickly.
Fourvière is quiet because it is high. The basilica and the Gallo-Roman theatres are close by on foot, but the lanes down to Vieux Lyon are steep, and the return after an evening in the old town is a climb. A car is easy here: valets take it into a secure garage reached directly from the hotel, which also serves visitors coming only for the bar. Small dogs are accepted on a lead, for an extra charge, and may not be left alone in the room.
The price question
The money buys a small, very quiet house on the hill, a large indoor pool for only 34 rooms, and a serious kitchen next door. It does not buy a city view in every room: the entry rooms look over the gardens, and the view of Lyon begins with the suites. Nor does it buy a grand dining room or the life of the city centre at the door; the evening ends up the hill.
Book it for two or three nights for a couple who want museums by day, the pool in the late afternoon and dinner at Têtedoie, with a suite if the city view matters. Travellers who want to walk out into the Presqu'île every evening, or a lively lobby, are better placed down in the city.
InterContinental Lyon – Hôtel-Dieu
In the Grand Hôtel-Dieu on the bank of the Rhône, Lyon's hospital for some eight hundred years until 2010, behind the long classical façade and dome by Soufflot, in the centre of the Presqu'île.
Maison Pic
In Valence, down the Rhône valley: the Pic family's house, sixteen rooms attached to Anne-Sophie Pic's restaurant.
The Extra Edit
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