The anecdote attracted a few curious people at the time: it was in one of the rooms of this hotel at 13e Parisian arrondissement that Michel Houellebecq locked himself away to write Serotonin. He will then install his character there. The dapper Hotel Rosalie was then an anonymous Mercure, dozing in its glass and concrete architecture of the 1990s, a stone’s throw from Place d’Italie. Not sure that the writer can now recognize the completely redesigned spaces, bearing the offbeat signature of architect Marion Mailaender, a rising star in French interior design.
But perhaps he would see a certain irony in the fact that the place of his book, presented by his publisher as a ” novel about the ravages of a world without kindness, without solidarity”, has now become a hotel infused with a local, sustainable and… united approach. “Here, we are more into optimism! », comments Joris Bruneel, seasoned hotelier and founder of Rosalie, nibbling on a raspberry grown on the rooftop, a few steps from the hop plants and a simmering vegetable garden that will soon introduce local schoolchildren to the cycle of the seasons.
Become a local resource
Opened six months ago, the Hotel Rosalie deploys its 60 rooms carpeted with recycled fishing nets in a post-industrial setting combining urban nature, floral prints and galvanized steel, and is preparing to be recognized “mission-based company”. Either a company with a ” purpose “, carried by “social and environmental objectives” (according to the Bercy website). And the raison d’être of Rosalie is to “to take root in your neighborhood, to develop a responsible and sustainable model, giving back a voice to nature, in an ultra-urban environment”, summarizes its creator, to whom we already owe the Hotel Babel, installed last year in the popular district of Belleville (Paris 20e).
On the model of its cousin Babel, the address on the left bank, displaying four stars, has taken care of its impact: staff recruited in close collaboration with the Pôle emploi and the borough town hall, local supply of coffee with croissants, game offered to neighboring artists, including students from the Estienne school (arts and graphic industries)… and a room “suspended”, thought like the caffè sospeso of Naples, a tradition of mutual aid consisting in leaving behind a coffee for a customer less pampered by life.
This room, which varies according to the reservation schedule, is made available to the municipality and associations to respond to emergency situations. “It’s just a little thing, a link. The bulk of the work has been to establish the channel with the town hall and the neighborhood police station, that they identify that a high-end hotel can also be a local resource…”, details Joris Bruneel. Taking advantage of empty rooms, the principle seduces even at Accor: the global group with 5,300 hotels has just launched a platform with the Women’s Foundation by committing “to give access to a room to women and children who are victims of violence in France”, echo of a formula already triggered at the height of confinement.
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