About 41, rue du Faubourg St. Honore (Hotel de Pontalba)
Baroness Micaela Aimonester de Pontalba purchased this property from Henri d’Aguesseau, Chancellor of France, in 1836. She hired architect Louis Visconti to demolish the existing house and build an H-pattern mansion known in Paris as an ‘hotel particulier’ which was completed in 1855. Baroness de Pontalba lived there until her death in 1871 after which, her heirs sold the home to the Rothschild family in 1876. During World War II, the Nazi German occupiers of France took it over for use as an Officer’s Club for the ‘Luftwaffe.’ It then served the same function for the British Royal Air Force immediately after the war. The U.S. Government purchased the property in 1948. It has been the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to France since the early 1970s.