Hôtel de Gantès, Private mansion in Aix-en-Provence, France.

The Hôtel de Gantès is a four-storey ashlar building on the Cours Mirabeau, its light ochre facade rising to a stone balustrade. Three rows of tall shuttered windows, framed by moulded surrounds, grow shorter toward the top. A green awning inscribed "Le Zinc" spans the ground floor, and a dark metal drainpipe runs down the right edge.

The mansion was built in 1660 for François de Gantès, a senior magistrate in the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence. It survived the upheavals of the French Revolution, though the circles using it underwent profound transformations during that period.

The ground-floor café, named Les Deux Garçons by 1840, drew regulars from Raimu and Mistinguett to Picasso, Edith Piaf, Alain Delon and Jean Cocteau. Paul Cézanne spent three hours there talking with Émile Zola before dinner. The awning over the entrance still reads "Le Zinc".

The mansion stands at 53 bis on the Cours Mirabeau, Aix-en-Provence's main avenue, so it is reached on foot from the old town rather than through narrow lanes. The café occupies the ground floor beneath the green "Le Zinc" awning; the hotel's eleven rooms and suites are upstairs. The building has been a listed monument historique since 1984.

A cafe on the ground floor served as a regular meeting place for painter Paul Cézanne and writer Émile Zola during their formative years. These encounters between the two figures shaped a friendship that would influence both their creative paths.