Photos from the auction catalogue by Ader Entreprises & Patrimoine.
Update 30/03/2023: All three auctions of the Hôtel Métropole’s trappings have been cancelled. “An initial procedure was carried out in 2002, which did not result in any classification for this furniture, which explains why it was able to be auctioned at the three sales planned for the Hôtel Métropole. All the furniture that is not classified will subsequently be put up for sale again, to allow the people of Brussels to acquire a souvenir of the Metropole, before its reopening scheduled for the end of 2025,” says the auctioner’s statement.
Bar Le 31 at the Hôtel Métropole was one of my favourite places to take my friends visiting from Canada.
It was a classy place with a slightly faded nostalgia tucked away on the ground floor. I usually found it quiet as most people seem to have stopped at the first terraced bar, the Café Métropole, along the hallway from the main entrance and did often not venture further into the more sombre interior.
I enjoyed being served a Chimay in style in a historic setting that fitted a time.
Now all the furniture, lighting, fittings, decorations, piano, down to the ashtrays, uniforms, everything it seems, are being auctioned in 178 lots on 30 March live at the Hotel Métropole from 14h. Two online auctions are also being held. One currently underway ends on 31 March at 11:00 features and features over 500 lots of furniture, lights and decorative objects.
The second online one will also feature over 500 items and will end 11 April at 11:00. The hotel has about 273 rooms, so that should finish off the old and prepare the hotel for its new look.
That one is still being prepared; all auctions are being managed by Paris-based Ader Entreprises & Patrimoine which lauds the the Belle Époque history of the Hôtel Métropole.
The Hotel Métropole opened in 1895 on the Place De Brouckère in downtown Brussels. The foundations were originally developed in 1874 by architect Antoine Trappeniers, housing the Caisse Générale d’Epargne et de Retraite. Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery bought it in 1891 as a bar/cafe, Café Métropole, to pour their Belgian and German style beers. The bar opened in 1889, then was transformed into the hotel under the direction of the architect Alban Chambon.
It seems to have become a mishmash of styles from the Renaissance to the Art Nouveau of its age.
At the end of 2022 the Bervoets family sold the hotel to the the Lone Star Fund according to local press, with its operation assigned to French company Centaurus Hospitality Management, with a planned reopening in 2025.
Before the auction you can still enter the hotel to see the exhibition of lots on 29 March.
