The hotel was commissioned by American businessman and architect Joel Hillman in the late nineteen-twenties. It was built in 1928 by André Terrail and Georges Wybo for a budget of 31 million dollars, or 60 million Francs. The latter are well known, the first being a restaurant owner of La Tour d'Argent, the newly built hotel at 31 Avenue George V facing his mansion. The second is the architect of the Casino de Deauville and the reconstruction of the Printemps Haussmann following the fire of 1921. Its exterior appearance is the style of the 1930s, nine floors of great sobriety. The startup of the hotel saw a large proportion of American customers, descended from Transatlantic steamers. Offices are located in Cherbourg to receive customers as soon as their arrival. Joel Hillman was forced to yield the George V after the Black Thursday of October 24, 1929 to a banking group. It was bought in 1931 by the banker François Dupré and a new wing was built by the original architects, for apartments rented year-round or season, enjoying the services of the hotel. The latter brought to the hotel many objects of art such as tapestries from Flanders, Boulle furniture, a Renoir and a Dufy. In World War II during the German occupation, a "round-table" of French and German intellectuals met at the hotel; including the writer Ernst Junger, the Nazi legal scholarCarl Schmitt, the publisher Gaston Gallimard and the writers Paul Morand, Jean Cocteau, and Henry Millon de Montherlant. On September 13, 1982, Mrs. M.L Morales de Montiel Arguello, sister-in-law of the twice former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua Dr Alejandro Montiel Arguello was staying at the hotel, with other members of her family for an ulterior meet up with Princess Grace of Monaco, who was in turn a former classmate of hers from their time at the Ravenhill Academy, a Philadelphis convent school. It was at the hotel that she was contacted by the Monégasque authorities informing her of the Princess's terrible accident which, a day later, took her life. In 1996 Saudi businessman Al-Waleed bin Talal bought the hotel from the Forte Group, spending $185 million for it. He then spent $120 million renovating the hotel, closing the hotel for two years during the process. The hotel reopened in Dec. 1999, managed by Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Starting in 2000, the hotel was voted "Best Hotel in the World" by a number of publications. A distinctive feature includes a lobby and walkways lined with floral displays.
