THE two islands in the middle of river Seine connected by a bridge form the heart of the oldest quarter of Paris. While tourists crowd in the Notre Dame cathedral on the western Isle de la Cité throughout the year, the Hôtel Lambert on the downward tip of Isle St. Louis in the east is largely ignored; for the simple reason that it is only known to a restricted group of amateurs of French cultural sites.

Does that sound a bit like the West Egg and the East Egg? But then the Lambert has its own magnificent history, perhaps even more exciting than that of the fictional Great Gatsby’s. Named after Jean-Baptist Lambert, the financial advisor to King Louis XIII and a powerful businessman, it was built in the year 1644 to house his family -and to welcome his guests to lavish receptions.

The royal architect Louis LeVau and painters Charles LeBrun and Eustache LeSueur who would later contribute to the glory of the Versailles palace for Louis IV, were behind the grand legend that the Lambert was to become in the years that followed.

The Hercules gallery here was LeVau’s original inspiration that was the model for Versailles’ famous corridor of mirrors with its painted ceiling and artworks along the walls. LeVau did not have the space on Isle St. Louis for the sprawling lawns and fountains that he later created at Versailles, so he added a magical hanging garden instead.

Since the mid 17th century the residence has changed hands many a time. One of the most famous owners was Marquise Gabrielle de Breteuil du Châtelet, the famed translator into French of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, who possessed it from 1739 and one of whose most famous guests was her lover, the philosopher Voltaire who sojourned here frequently.

By the early 19th century this ownership moved to Prince Czartoryski of Poland, a man madly in love with Paris. During his time the Lambert transformed itself into an unending feast with parties every night and people such as the musical genius Frederic Chopin, writers George Sand and Honoré de Balzac and painter Eugene Delacroix present here more or less permanently.

Between the two World Wars many American celebrities would attend parties at the Lambert, notably F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

Then, a youthful and rich baron named Alexis von Rosenberg de Rédé who shared his night life passion with the Polish prince rented the place in 1949 and continued the tradition uninterrupted. His frequent guests included painters Picasso and Salvador Dali and Hollywood figures like Orson Welles, not to forget his next-door neighbor at Isle St. Louis, Prince Aly Khan.

Though the illustrious Rothschild banking family would buy the Lambert in 1975 from the descendants of Prince Czartoryski, it would remain a perpetual lieu of high society soirées for Baron de Rédé until his death in 2004 at age 82.

The Rothschilds finally sold the property in 2007 -and our story actually begins here- to Prince Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Thani, the brother of the Emir of Qatar, for 80 million euros.

Times have changed and you cannot blame an oil prince for not thinking the same way as his feudal predecessors. His immediate plan now is to add modern comforts to the Lambert. These include central heating and air conditioning to sidestep the old fashioned routine of burning logs in the fireplaces or opening wide the windows during summertime.

To add to this is a project for an underground parking lot, plus elevators not only to bring people up but also to haul the limousines of special guests to the hanging garden.

Paris Historique, an association of people dedicated to the cultural preservation of the city, has filed a lawsuit against these renovations, pleading that bringing in modern gimmicks to a revered site such as the Lambert would be a catastrophe.

There are strong arguments from both sides. The preservationists hold that the Lambert’s days as a private residence with the high society nightly feasts are over and that it should now be run by the Ministry of Culture as a museum; that would safeguard the site’s dignity and the government will recuperate its investment in no time with tourists flooding in.

In his defence the architect hired by the prince says the challenge involves more than just adding modern technologies to the building; the restoration of the humid interior walls and the cleaning up of the paintings, stone carvings, ancient woodwork in the library and of the masonry in general are the more important features of a project that can hardly be ignored.

The controversy is far from over -but about three weeks ago, on the night of July 9th to be exact, Hôtel Lambert caught fire so intensely that it required 200 firefighters and 12 hours of struggle to put the flames out. The celebrated bathroom with wall frescoes by LeSueur was completely destroyed, as was a delicately carved mahogany spiral staircase. The good news is that the Hercules gallery and the Library are intact though most of the damage was done to the roof which is ‘easily replaceable’ according to the experts.

The prince intends to spend another 70 million euros, bringing his total investment to a round figure of 150 million, and settle down on Isle St. Louis by the end of 2015.

Then the party can begin…

The writer is a journalist based in Paris. ZafMasud@gmail.com