Hotel Gaillard

The Hotel Gaillard features an ornate facade of carved stone, modeled directly on the Renaissance chateaus of the Loire Valley. Émile Gaillard, a wealthy banker who collected fifteenth-century art, commissioned the building in eighteen eighty-two to house his massive collection. He demanded that the architect mimic the style of the Louis the twelfth wing at the Chateau de Blois. Decades later, the Bank of France converted the residence into a branch, installing a massive underground vault where Gaillard once displayed his tapestries.