LE CHABANAIS has been setting the standards for elite luxury companions and the name has been celebrated for over 100 years.

LE CHABANAIS - The legend lives - since 1878

From the 19th century until 1946, establishments in France were known as "maisons de tolerance". They were registered by the State and operated legally throughout the country. In 1910 there were 180 approved establishments in Paris alone. Prominent celebrities, politicians and royalty patronised the best of them especially the most exclusive of all "LE CHABANAIS", named for its address at 12 rue Chabanais, tucked discreetly away in a side street near the Louvre.

LE CHABANAIS had a reputation throughout Europe as the most luxurious and high-class of all the Paris establishments. Only the most beautiful refined women worked at LE CHABANAIS and they undoubtedly entertained the rich and famous for many years. LE CHABANAIS was a favourite destination of Bertie, The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who would bath in a vast ornate copper bathtub filled with Mumm Cordon Rouge champagne.

LE CHABANAIS was founded in 1878 by a Madame Kelly, an Irishwoman who belonged to the high society Jockey Club. Madame Kelly was immediately successful in attracting the wealthy and the powerful to her establishment and she sold shares at 100 francs apiece. Each of the 30 rooms in LE CHABANAIS was sumptuously decorated in a theme of its own, ranging from Moorish to Louis XIV and ancient Roman. The Japanese room won a prize for design at the Universal Exhibition in 1900.

LE CHABANAIS combined the lure of private pleasures with chic bars, restaurants and a cabaret, attracting stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Mae West and Edith Piaf, as well as politicians and foreign dignitaries. When Salvador Dali first arrived in Paris from Spain he asked to be taken directly to LE CHABANAIS. He came out three hours later with enough material to furnish his fantasies for a lifetime. Toulouse-Lautrec gave LE CHABANAIS as his address in Paris and allegedly paid his rent there in a series of 16 paintings.

The age of the "maisons du tolerance" came to end in 1946, when the new Paris council voted to close the establishments. So after 68 years of dispensing pleasure, it seemed that the life of LE CHABANAIS had come to an end. Now more than 60 years later, we are proud to associate the name of LE CHABANAIS with our private members elite model introduction agency setting the same standards of luxury, discretion and service catering exclusively to wealthy gentlemen of taste and style throughout the world.