The Paris Ritz, the pinnacle of luxurious hotels for the past 114 years, is closing down on July 31 for an unprecedented two-year makeover, its renowned Hemingway Bar having already been shuttered since mid-April. The prospect of a modernized Ritz has sent nervous tremors through the hotel’s devoted clientele, but the French architect and designer Thierry Despont, who was responsible for the renovation of the Carlyle in New York and the Dorchester in London, says he will try to maintain the landmark’s old-world elegance. On the last night of service in the Hemingway Bar, Colin Field, the chef du bar, assured the assembled apprehensive regulars that his bailiwick would maintain its unique cachet.

The decision to undertake this major renovation was probably partly attributable to the fact that last year, when the French Tourism Ministry awarded its highest designation—“Palace”—to only three hotels in the city, the Ritz was not one of them. Another factor may be that such recently refurbished prestigious hotels as Le Royal Monceau and Le Bristol are challenging the Ritz, as are a number of new ones: the Shangri-La, which opened in 2010, the Mandarin Oriental, which opened in 2011, and the Peninsula and the Cheval Blanc, which will open, respectively, in 2013 and 2014.

This mounting competition has also induced the celebrated Hôtel de Crillon, on the Place de la Concorde, to announce that it too will close for two years to get a total face-lift.

It has been 33 years since the Ritz’s last restoration, and its antiquated air-conditioning, heating, plumbing, and wiring are all in need of replacement. A tunnel will be built to connect the underground parking facility in the Place Vendôme to the hotel, ostensibly to eliminate the noxious paparazzi who congregate at the hotel’s entrance in order to catch arriving celebrities.

The Ritz cognoscenti are in favor of these improvements, but at the same time they hope that the unhurried ambience of the place—the majestic winding staircases, the crystal chandeliers, the draperies, the sculptures, the feeling that one has entered a luxurious country home attended by a plethora of wonderful staff—will not be disturbed.

I first visited the Ritz 64 years ago, accompanying Ernest Hemingway, who was writing Across the River and into the Trees, a novel that was going to be serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine, for which I was then a young editor. Hemingway and the Ritz were virtually synonymous. In the 20s he and his buddy Scott Fitzgerald had spent many long evenings at the hotel’s celebrated bar, and their behavior there had become legend. As World War II ended in Europe, Hemingway personally liberated the bar as the Nazis were retreating. It was expected that General Leclerc, in command of the Allied troops, would be first on the scene, marching up the Avenue de la Grande Armée with a full panoply of tanks, artillery, flags, and bands. But well before Leclerc could get there, a jeep came careening up the avenue, zipped under the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs-Élysées, and across the Place de la Concorde, then skidded to a stop in the Place Vendôme at the entrance of the Ritz. Hemingway was in command of that jeep. Ostensibly a war correspondent, but with a gun slung in the crook of his arm, he had taken charge of the motley group in the vehicle, most of them stragglers who had become separated from their units. Hemingway called them his “Irregulars.”

He led them into the Ritz, proclaimed its liberation, took command of the bar, and ordered champagne for everyone. Soon the renowned combat photographer Robert Capa—later killed in Indochina—came tooling up to the Ritz, thinking he was miles ahead of anyone else, but he was amazed to find that Hemingway had beaten him to it. Archie Pelkey, Hemingway’s driver, was standing guard at the entrance. “Hello, Capa,” Pelkey said. “Papa took good hotel. Plenty good stuff in cellar. Go on up.”