La Grande Maison de Bernard Magrez

The Hotel

La Grande Maison opened on 12 May 2014 as the personal hotel project of Bernard Magrez — the Bordeaux wine merchant who owns Château Pape Clément (Pessac-Léognan classed-growth, founded 1252), Château La Tour Carnet (Médoc Grand Cru classified 1855), Château Fombrauge (Saint-Émilion Grand Cru) and Clos Haut-Peyraguey (Sauternes premier cru classé) plus 35 vineyards across France, Argentina, Chile, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Uruguay, and California. The site is a restored 18th-century Bordeaux private mansion at 10 Rue Labottière in the Mériadeck-and-Tourny quarter, six minutes by car from Place de la Comédie. The architectural commission was Bordeaux practice Frédéric Chaillou with interior architecture by Alberto Pinto Studio of Paris; the brief was a deliberately small six-room hotel that operates as a private residence, with the kitchen as the principal dining destination and the room programme as the boutique-residency layer.

The 6 rooms — all named after Bordeaux wine appellations or châteaux — are individually configured around the original 18th-century mansion footprint. Standard categories at 30 sqm; the named Suites (Margaux, Pomerol, Saint-Émilion, Pape Clément) at 50-90 sqm are the milestone units. The Suite Bernard Magrez at 110 sqm — the original noble bedroom of the mansion — is the headline category. Bathrooms are travertine and brass; bath products are Magrez-curated organic. The deliberate small footprint of the rooms reflects the heritage building's constraints; the property maintains a 12-staff-to-6-room ratio for the service register.

The dining programme is the principal proposition. Pierre Gagnaire — the Saint-Étienne-born chef who has held three Michelin stars at his eponymous Paris restaurant since 1998 and operates a small global residency programme (Pierre Gagnaire Tokyo, Sketch London) — took on La Grande Maison as his Bordeaux residency in May 2014. Executive chef Pierre Lecoutre runs the daily kitchen under Gagnaire's supervision; the kitchen has held two Michelin stars continuously since 2015. The 1,200-bottle cellar holds Magrez-property verticals back to the 1950s — the most extensive single-collector cellar of any Bordeaux hotel. Le Salon — the original 18th-century mansion drawing room — runs the all-day register and afternoon tea. The Bar runs the cocktail-and-aperitivo programme. There is no spa, pool or fitness centre — the heritage-building footprint precludes all three.

The Rue Labottière position is the booking trade-off relative to the central Place de la Comédie hotels. From the front door it is six minutes by car or 12 minutes on foot to Place de la Comédie, four minutes to the Bordeaux Cathedral, eight minutes to the Public Garden (Jardin Public), and 20 minutes by car to Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport. The Mériadeck-and-Tourny position is more residential and quieter than the central Place de la Comédie axis; the trade-off for the small-and-discreet booking. For travellers wanting the smallest, most architecturally rigorous Bordeaux boutique with the Gagnaire dinner programme as the principal proposition, La Grande Maison is unambiguous.

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