Hôtel de Breteuil

The Hôtel de Breteuil wears a limestone facade carved with the heavy, masculine garlands typical of the late nineteenth century. It sits on the avenue Foch, built by an aristocratic diplomat named Charles de Breteuil who wanted a residence befitting his rank. In eighteen ninety-six, he commissioned the architect Ernest Sanson to construct this mansion. It remains an imposing example of the private estates that once defined the upper reaches of Parisian society, long before the Irish government acquired the building for its embassy.