 The hôtel was built for a financier, Abraham Peyrenc de Moras, who had speculated successfully in the ill-fated paper money schemes of John Law that had ruined many, at a time when the Faubourg Saint-Germain was still suburban in character.His house, the most superb in the neighborhood, was built as a free-standing structure, not "entre cour et jardin" ("between entrance court and garden") with party walls against adjoining buildings, as "hôtels" in more densely built quarters of Paris were traditionally built since the seventeenth century.The house is still surrounded by three hectares (7.3 acres) of grounds.