Elliott Barnes Interiors

Few designers have a professional pedigree as intriguing and illustrious as Elliott Barnes. Born in Los Angeles, he’s a Cornell-trained architect who briefly worked for the Canadian modernist Arthur Erickson before joining the Paris-based studio of legendary designer Andrée Putman, which he went on to lead. Barnes launched his eponymous studio in the City of Light 20 years ago and has since designed interiors of extraordinary invention and restrained luxury for an international array of clients. Which is what makes him such a fascinating choice to design the sumptuous new Hôtel de Montesquieu, whose 19th-century Orientalist decor is loosely inspired by Baron de Montesquieu’s 1721 epistolary novel The Persian Letters. For Barnes, the most impressive element in the dining salon is the “architectural embroidery” — the silk-cord and brass-tube panels on the walls, representing a contemporary take on traditional Islamic latticework. However, he notes, what gives the room its worldly but genial spirit are its vintage elements: the tea tables, actually French gaming tables from the 1960s, with Moroccan details of mother-of-pearl and bone; and the assorted 1950s French porcelain lamps with chinoiserie motifs, found at the St. Ouen flea market.