When Hector Guimard (1867-1942) designed the Castel Henriette in 1899, he was at the peak of his career. The previous year, he had been commissioned to design the entrances to the new Paris Metro which he continued to do until 1904. His architecture achieved a seamless blend of art, design and technology. The Metro stations, as for much of the ironwork that decorated Guimard's fashionable villas and apartment blocks, were made up of a series of standardised, modular components. Elements such as the moulded, cast iron masks, suspended from cross bars in a repeat pattern around many of the entrances, have come to symbolise the Paris Metro, if not Paris itself. This window grille for the Castel Henriette, restored to its original colour, is made from standard strip and angle iron, forged into a restless, linear whiplash design which characterised Guimard's work and defined him as the greatest architectural practitioner of French Art Nouveau.

The Castel Henriette in the rue de Binelles, Sèvres was commissioned by Madame Hefty and built between 1899 and 1900. By the 1960s, the house had passed out of the family. Its last recorded use was as a backdrop for the film What's New Pussycat? in 1965, directed for United Artists by Clive Donner and starring Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress, Paula Prentiss, Burt Baccarach and Romy Schneider. In 1969, the Castel Henriette was regrettably demolished.