The Story of La Samaritaine, Paris and a Tour of the Art Deco Grand Magasin

The Story of La Samaritaine

Ernest Cognacq tried his hand at retail in Paris and failed more than once. In 1867, he opened a shop called Au Petit Bénéfice on Rue de Turbigo. It went under. He ended up selling fabric from a cart under the second arch of Pont Neuf, working from crates covered in red cloth. People called him “Napoléon du déballage,” Napoleon of the packing crates.

By 1870, he’d saved enough money to rent a small space at the corner of Rue du Pont-Neuf and Rue de la Monnaie. He called it La Samaritaine, after a hydraulic pump that had once stood nearby, depicting a Samaritan woman from the Bible.

In 1872, he married Marie-Louise Jaÿ, who’d been working as a buyer in the ready-to-wear department at Le Bon Marché. She brought about 20,000 francs to the marriage. He’d managed to save 5,000. Together, they ran the store, working 14-hour days.

They introduced fixed prices and let customers try on clothes before buying, which was revolutionary at the time. The slogan “On trouve tout à la Samaritaine” caught on. You can find everything at La Samaritaine.

Sales climbed fast. By 1875, they hit 800,000 francs. By 1882, 6 million. In 1898, over 50 million. By 1925, they’d passed the billion mark.

Building an Empire

In 1883, Cognacq met architect Frantz Jourdain, a pioneer in iron-frame architecture and Art Nouveau. Jourdain redesigned the store’s interior in 1891 and later their home on what is now Avenue Foch.

In 1905, Jourdain designed the second La Samaritaine building, which opened in 1910. It had a visible metal frame, twin cupolas, and a facade covered in colorful enamel panels showing peacocks and flowers. The building was bold for Paris. Most Haussmann buildings used stone. This one flaunted iron, glass, and bright yellows, greens, and golds.

Between 1926 and 1928, Jourdain worked with Henri Sauvage to extend the store toward the Seine. This time, city regulations forced them to hide the metal frame behind a stone facade, giving the building its Art Deco look. 

By the time they finished expansions in 1930 and 1932, La Samaritaine occupied four buildings and spread across an entire city block, making it the largest department store in Paris at 538,200 square feet.

At its peak, it employed 8,000 people. The Cognacqs didn’t forget where they came from. In 1914, they gave half the company’s capital to employees and distributed 65 percent of profits to them each year. They created the Cognacq-Jay Foundation in 1916, which ran a nursery, a maternity clinic, a nursing home, and an orphanage.

Marie-Louise died in 1925. Ernest died in 1928. They had no children, so their nephew Gabriel Cognacq took over.

The Long Closure

The store’s fortunes declined after World War II. When Les Halles marketplace moved to Rungis in the early 1970s, La Samaritaine lost the shoppers who used to pass by on their way to work. The building’s Art Nouveau style started to feel outdated. Sales dropped.

LVMH acquired a majority stake in 2001 for €256 million. The store kept operating, but safety inspections revealed serious problems. Fire escape routes were inadequate. The century-old structure was deteriorating. On June 15, 2005, Paris authorities ordered it closed.

For 16 years, the building sat empty while people debated what would happen to it. Some feared it would be demolished and turned into a mall or a generic hotel. LVMH acquired the remaining shares from the Cognacq-Jay Foundation in 2010 and started planning a massive renovation.

The project cost €750 million and took 15 years. Pritzker Prize-winning firm SANAA designed a new undulating glass facade for one section. French architect Jean-François Lagneau oversaw the restoration of the historic Art Nouveau and Art Deco elements. Designer Peter Marino handled the interiors.

They restored the peacock fresco that wraps around the building under the glass roof. It measures 3.5 meters high by 115 meters long, covering 400 square meters. It had been painted over in white in 1960, and nobody had seen it in decades. The restoration brought back the original colors.

The grand staircase was rebuilt with 16,000 pieces of gold leaf. The Art Nouveau dome was reconstructed following the 1905 structure. The colorful enamel lettering on the facade was uncovered from beneath layers of stone-colored wash.

The Reopening

La Samaritaine reopened on June 23, 2021, and is now a major department store that people flock to shop at. It’s now a mixed-use complex with 215,280 square feet of retail space, a 72-room Cheval Blanc hotel, offices, 96 social housing units, and a nursery. The department store houses over 600 brands, with 50 exclusives.

The beauty floor in the restored basement is billed as the largest in Europe at 36,600 square feet. There are restaurants, including one under the restored glass roof, where you can eat surrounded by the original murals.

It’s smaller than it was in its heyday and much more expensive. The retail floors cover what you’d expect: streetwear and luxury ready-to-wear with pieces you won’t find anywhere else, clean beauty products alongside classic perfume houses, handbags, fine jewelry, and several rooms dedicated to rotating installations that change throughout the year.

The Cheval Blanc side has its own entrance and leads into Loulou, a space devoted to Paris-themed souvenirs and goods from local creative talents. It also celebrates La Samaritaine’s own history through carefully curated products that tell the store’s story.

If you feel like splashing the cash, you can even book a private shopping experience at L’Appartement, complete with your own personal shopper. It’s an experience like no other, as the whole area has been designed to resemble a Parisian apartment. It is usually reserved for DFS CIRCLE members (DFS is LVMH’s luxury travel retail arm), but money talks, and it’s not out of the question if you have a deep wallet.

The store that once drew working-class shoppers now caters to luxury buyers. Some longtime Parisians mourned the loss of the old Samaritaine, which had been accessible to everyone. But at least the building survived, which seemed uncertain for a long time.