At the beginning of the XVIII century, the Champs Elysees were considered a suburb of Paris, and a rural idyll reigned here. But under Louis XV, closer to the middle of the century, the courtiers turned their attention to the picturesque grounds and began to build luxurious villas here. As a result, the land became fabulously expensive, and court architect Louis-Marie Colignon decided to take advantage of this. He bought the site and built a mansion, hoping to lease it to wealthy grandees (the first was Pierre Manyard, the Marquis de la Vaupallier, who commanded the king's musketeers, after whom the property was named).

Colignon was guided by the neoclassical style, popular in those years, the so-called ala grec style. The building constructed by him consisted of the central part and two lower wings, to the entrance led a linden avenue. The two-storey mansion was decorated with pilasters and bas-reliefs on mythological scenes. In 1996, AXA decided to restore Wauplier by inviting architect Ricardo Bofill, who was given the task not only to renovate the dilapidated facade, but also to create a space for informal business meetings inside the building (now the mansion is used as a kind of closed AXA office, where the negotiations are held). Ricardo treated the historic architecture very carefully: the main building retained its original appearance, and he created the necessary additional space by blocking the inner courtyard with a glass roof.

In the 18th century, a brilliant society gathered in this mansion. The whole Paris came to the Whalingers. Accordingly, the interiors were decorated in a big way. To restore the former splendor was invited to Francois-Joseph Graf, the famous French decorator, engaged in the restoration of historic interiors for more than one year. Under his leadership, restored stucco and boiserie, he picked up an antique decor, an authentic era, and also developed the design of textiles, using archival documents. The decorator says that “to assemble” such - antique - interior is extremely interesting: “These things are capricious. So, I have long doubted that the music stand of the middle of the XVIII century from the collection of Hubert Zivanshi will get on with the carpet from the Tuileries Palace, but in the end everything went. For this mansion I managed to find unique items. Take, for example, an office in the style of "boules", once donated by Louis XIV to Charles II. "

Decorator François-Joseph Graf: “The Vopalier mansion is an architectural masterpiece, in these interiors it’s fit to open a museum. Of course, in four centuries, he experienced a lot. When AXA decided to restore it and turned to me, I realized that interiors would actually have to be redone. Preserved some elements of decor - stucco, boazeri. But they needed to be seriously upgraded. The situation was more complicated with the situation. I picked it up carefully, for a long time, searched for antique galleries, turned to private collectors, watched the auctions. As a result, I managed to pick up the rarest things worthy of being in a building of such value. ”