Based on designs by Anastasios Metaxas, this beautiful, 19th-century building at 7 Vasilissis Sofias Street is a good example of late neoclassicism.

Owned by Englishman Charles Merlin, a descendant of French revolutionaries, the building was let to the French Embassy in Athens in 1896. In 1914, the French government bought the building, renaming it Hôtel Merlin de Douai, in honour of Charles Merlin’s revolutionary ancestor.

Throughout the 20th century, the building underwent many renovations, the last being in the 1990s, under the direction of French architect Christian Duval.