Bus Palladium reopens as a hotel, five floors above the old stage

May 12. The Bus Palladium building in Pigalle, dark since 2018, opened Thursday as a hotel. Studio KO kept the stage and turned the five-story rock temple into 39 rooms. The bar where Lou Reed drank is now the ground-floor lobby bar. Same zinc counter, same sightlines to the stage.

The top two floors are suites. One was the green room. Studio KO left the original plaster crown molding, swapped the rider beers for a minibar, and ran velvet along the walls. The suite books at €950. The standard rooms on floors two and three start at €320. Each has a record player and a shelf of vinyl pulled from the venue's archive. Bowie, Gainsbourg, some Suicide.

The stage is still a stage. Studio KO installed it as the centerpiece of the lobby, one step up from the bar floor. No band booked yet. The hotel says they'll program it as a rotating residency starting this summer. Small acts, one-night stands, the old Palladium register. The room holds 180 standing.

Pigalle has three hotel openings in six months. This is the only one with a stage in the lobby and a green room you can sleep in. The vinyl is a nice tell. Most hotel-design gestures stop at the idea of music. This one kept the gear.