Porte-cochère

A porte-cochère is the covered driveway entrance where cars pull up and drop off guests under shelter, the canopied area right in front of the hotel doors where the bellman opens the door and a porter takes your bags. The term comes from French for "coach gateway," originally designed for horse-drawn carriages in 17th-century Paris townhouses. The really famous ones: Le Bristol Paris, the Beverly Hills Hotel (pink, palm-lined, instantly recognizable), Raffles Singapore (with the Sikh doormen in turbans), the Plaza in New York, Mandarin Oriental Bangkok. Lifestyle hotels often skip the porte-cochère deliberately, to feel more casual. Grand hotels keep it because it's pure arrival theater.