PARIS, Sep 5, 2001/ --- Just when you thought you'd seen everything in hip boutique hotels, along comes Andrée Putman, who whips up a brilliantly path-breaking new one.

Welcome to Pershing Hall, Putman's fifth hotel and, judging from first impressions of this new hostelry three minutes from the Champs Elysees, the City of Lights' next must-visit abode.

Putman's most revolutionary idea is an amazing vertical garden composed entirely of tropical plants from Southeast Asia that crawls 35 meters (115 feet) up a felt wall in the hotel's courtyard, providing the majority of the 26 rooms with fascinating vistas.

Patrick Blanc, a groundbreaking new garden designer, created the hanging garden by attaching several inches of felt and sewing the plants into pockets. A fiber-optic cable that snakes through the undergrowth illuminates the foliage at night.

"These plants are like orphans. They all grow in little light under the huge canopy of tropical forests, so they will survive well in their new Paris home," smiled Putman as she took FWD on a private tour of Pershing Hall.

The hotel is situated in a charming cut-stone mansion, formerly the American Legion in Paris that's named after John Joseph Pershing, the commander in chief of American forces in World War I, who made the townhouse his headquarters.

Putman has retained much of the building's history including fine wrought iron balconies with American Legion and US Army five star motifs and some wonderful cut stone eagles and military heads. But in her usual iconoclastic style she's blended in high-tech ideas - brushed metal bar, cooked lava table tops on the outside terrace and comfortable banquette fabrics with the durability of steel.

Some radical surgery - ripping down a series of walls - makes the first two floors flow and offers various levels from which to admire the place.

Arguably France's most important interior decorator, Putman previously remodeled the Concorde, designed Karl Lagerfeld's office at Chanel and created Morgans hotel in New York, to many the first "boutique" hotel.

The Pershing boasts everything from big, chic suites priced at 1,000 Euros ($925) to smaller more discreet rooms starting at 380 Euros ($350) featuring fine woods, old English bathroom fittings and high-tech choices like DVD and Internet connections. It opens this Friday.

Paris Match photographers, formerly neighbors, used to love to play poker and drink cognac at "Le Pershing" back in the days when the American Legion still used it. The place was moth balled seven years ago, but a recent act of Congress permits the Legion to rent property it wasn't using to commercial interests.

Two French entrepreneurs, Guy Assayag and Albert Levy, signed a 99-year lease and bankrolled the project's $10 million budget. They also hired hot new French chef Erwan Louaisil, who joins Pershing Hall with a remarkable CV that includes stints with Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo, Marco Pierre White in London's Quo Vadis and Daniel Boulud in New York.

Louaisil will oversee the hotel's two restaurants: the ground-floor Pershing, which boasts a separate entrance, sanded mirror paneling and seating for 100 (specializing in modern French cuisine), and an upstairs eatery serving a series of international dishes.

"We wanted to respect the memory of the hotel and its past. But you do that best by bringing something really new," says Andrée as she points to the gray and terrazzo lobby. "Notice the green specks. We made them out of old Coca Cola bottles!"

The balcony overlooking the garden at Pershing Hall Paris

Balcony and view of the garden