Hôtel du Palais
Napoléon III built this seaside villa for Empress Eugénie in 1854. Sold after his death and reborn as a hotel-casino, it burned down in 1903 and was rebuilt within two years — the version travellers see today.
At a glance
Hôtel du Palais stands on Biarritz’s Grande Plage, on the site Emperor Napoléon III chose for a summer residence for his wife, Empress Eugénie, in 1854. The domain became a hotel-casino after the emperor’s death, was destroyed by fire in 1903, and was rebuilt within two years by the architect Édouard Niermans. Its facades and roofs have been protected as a historic monument since 1993, and it now operates as a five-star hotel in the Unbound Collection by Hyatt.
History
In 1854 Napoléon III bought dunes overlooking the Bay of Biscay and commissioned a summer villa for Eugénie. Construction began under the engineer Dagueret’s direction with the architect Hippolyte Durand; in June 1855 the twenty-seven-year-old architect Louis-Auguste Couvrechef took over and softened the design. The result, Villa Eugénie, became the imperial couple’s regular summer residence and drew European society to Biarritz.
Napoléon III died in 1873, and in 1880 Eugénie sold the domain to the Banque de l’Union Parisienne, which converted it into a hotel-casino under the name Palais Biarritz. A fire in February 1903 destroyed nearly the entire building — only the imperial chapel survived. The architect Édouard Niermans, who would later design the Negresco in Nice (1911–1913), rebuilt it between 1903 and 1905 in a neo-Louis XIII style, using reinforced concrete behind brick and stone facades.
What you see
Niermans’s 1905 reconstruction gives the hotel its current silhouette: steep slate roofs, red brick banded with stone, and a symmetrical garden front facing the sea, all in the neo-Louis XIII idiom fashionable for grand hotels of the period. The imperial chapel, the one part of Napoléon III and Eugénie’s villa to survive the 1903 fire, still stands within the grounds.
Inside, the hotel keeps the scale of a Belle Époque palace hotel: grand public rooms facing the Grande Plage and the Atlantic, the earliest of Niermans’s grand-hotel commissions, years before Riviera landmarks like the Negresco would make his name there.
Key facts
- Origin: built 1854–55 as Villa Eugénie for Napoléon III and Empress Eugénie; architects Hippolyte Durand, then Louis-Auguste Couvrechef
- Became a hotel: 1880, after Eugénie sold the domain to the Banque de l’Union Parisienne
- Rebuilt: 1903–1905 by architect Édouard Niermans, after a fire destroyed the original building in February 1903
- Heritage status: facades and roofs listed historic monument since 1993
- Location: 1 Avenue de l’Impératrice, Biarritz, on the Grande Plage
- Today: five-star hotel, the Unbound Collection by Hyatt
Practical information & getting there
The hotel sits directly on Biarritz’s Grande Plage, within walking distance of the town centre and the Rocher de la Vierge. Biarritz Pays Basque Airport is about 3 km away.
Sources & resources
- English Wikipedia — “Hôtel du Palais” (construction history, architects, 1903 fire, 1993 heritage listing)
- Ville Impériale — “L’Hôtel du Palais de Biarritz” (Villa Eugénie origins)
- Hôtel & Lodge Magazine — “L’hôtel du Palais à Biarritz: l’élégance napoléonienne”
- Official site: hoteldupalaisbiarritz.com (the Unbound Collection by Hyatt)
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