Created by impresario Fabrice Emaer (1935–1983) in 1978, intellectuals, actors, designers, artists, models and American and European jetsetters patronized the club for its flamboyant DJ Guy Cuevas, extravagant theme parties and performances, and Emaer's rule-breaking mix of club-goers that threw together rich and poor, gay and straight, black and white.
Constructed in the 17th century,[2] the building on rue on Faubourg Montmartre already had a modern history as theater and dance hall before Fabrice Emaer turned it into one of the hottest nightclubs in Paris.
In 1931, Oscar Dufrenne took the bold step of changing the theater into a cinema, a move which came to an end when his nude corpse was discovered on site in 1933, inspiring rumors of rough trade gone bad.
When impresario Fabrice Emaer decided to open a place large enough to rival Studio 54 in New York, it was Michel Guy who suggested he buy Le Palace.
The focus here was dancing and the Sept quickly became "the epicenter of disco" in part because Emaer hired a young Cuban DJ Guy Cuevas, to work the turntable.
After a visit to New York City's Studio 54, Emaer returned with even greater ambitions to create a space that was more than a club, but a cultural experience.
The colossal expenses placed a financial burden on the future of the club, but in the short term the results were impressive as every detail was calculated.
Emaer was very careful about the new wave, disco, and no wave punk music played there, such as Iggy Pop, Heldon (both Iggy Pop and Heldon have released on LP live concerts from Le Palace), Les Rita Mitsouko, Tuxedomoon, Electric Calls, Étienne Daho, Clair Obscur, Boy George, Françoise Hardy, Amanda Lear , Devo and Lucrate Milk.
Emaer was also very picky about the door entry selection which was at first surveyed by physiognomists Paquita Paquin, Jenny Bel’Air and Edwige Belmore.
[10] Among the regular famous visitors (to name just a few) were singer/song writer Serge Gainsbourg, Socialist Party politician Jack Lang, Alain Pacadis, of the newspaper Libération who frequently evoked le Palace and its regulars in his chronicles; philosopher Michel Foucault, semiotician Roland Barthes; singer Mick Jagger; artists Erró, Jean-Jacques Lebel and Andy Warhol; journalist Frédéric Mitterrand; director Roger Vadim; decorator Andrée Putman; movie producer and illustrator Jean-Paul Goude; art critics Pierre Restany and Catherine Millet, model and singer Grace Jones; couturiers Karl Lagerfeld, Kenzo, Claude Montana, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel, Paco Rabanne, and Yves Saint Laurent; model Iman, the CEO of Yves Saint Laurent and friend of François Mitterrand, Pierre Bergé; impersonator Thierry Le Luron; art gallerist Cyril Putman; actresses Jeanne Moreau, Alice Sapritch and Brigitte Bardot; and Figuration Libre/Bad Painting/Neo-expressionist painters Robert Combas, François Boisrond, Hervé Di Rosa and Remi Blanchard.
In 1994 the couple David and Cathy Guetta, with le Privilège, tried to relaunch it; renovating it (Garouste's decorations disappeared) and renaming it the Kitkat.