Visit Sites edited by VB.com

History

The “Visit” phenomenon

The Visit phenomenon started in the early years of the internet, between California, Britain and Paris. A global fashion followed: Visit + [destination] .com.

Click a date with photos to open its archive images.

1. 13701 photoThe Villeroy family, food merchants at the Paris Les Halles market, settle in an old house. Over the next 300 years they become advisors to the Bourbons, the Kings of France.
2. 16701 photoInvited to live at the future Palace of Versailles, the Villeroy children decide to sell their historic home.
3. 1671Louis Pajot and Leon Rouillé establish “La Poste Royale”, an avant-garde tech company, in the former Hotel de Villeroy Bourbon (VB) at 9 rue des Déchargeurs in Paris.
4. 1710Louis Leon Pajot, grandson of the two company founders, becomes general postmaster. He cooperates with Anselm Franz, 2nd Prince of Thurn and Taxis, another postmaster based in Brussels and Frankfurt.
5. 1738King Louis XV withdraws the postal license, and the VB mansion falls asleep. Over time the story is forgotten in Paris, but it remains in the memory of the Thurn & Taxis postal family.
6. 1869Cremerie de Paris opens at the VB mansion, a milk store at the Les Halles food market.
7. 18781 photoChristopher Sholes (1819–1890), a printer and newspaper editor from Milwaukee, USA, invents the keyboard for typewriters. By placing the letters V and B right next to each other, Sholes gives “VB” a magical communication tool for the future.
8. 1920Dmitri Romanov, a cousin of Anastasia Romanov, survives the Russian Revolution and arrives in Paris.
9. 1921Dmitri shows Coco Chanel the VB mansion, with a fascinating N°5 staircase in the courtyard. Chanel falls in love with both Romanov and Cremerie de Paris. Their affair doesn’t last, but what is left is the CC logo, N°5 and a little Romanov jewel.
10. 1938Coco Chanel meets Aimée de Heeren, not realizing that the girl she believes to be a “fashionista” is a Brazilian Service agent collecting anti-Nazi information.
11. 1970Shortly before leaving this world, Chanel gives Aimée the little jewel as a “luck bringer”.
12. 1985Jon Postel lays the ground for the Internet. The first dot com internet domains are registered.
13. 19861 photoJohannes, 11th Prince of Thurn & Taxis, shows the abandoned postal mansion to Ben Solms, a young student. He believes the energy of the old postmasters is still there, sleeping in the old walls of VB. He gives the keys of a small boutique next door to the young student, with the mission to find a new idea in telecommunications.
14. 1987The small boutique opens as Electrica for Sony, a small phone boutique. Due to the French PTT monopoly it is impossible to sell the phones, but the boutique turns into a service center, attracting all kinds of audiovisual people who want a Sony phone.
15. 1989Akio Morita discovers the little boutique and passes on his ideas of global branding.
16. 1993Cremerie de Paris is for sale, but the Sony revenues are not enough to get a real estate loan. Aimée de Heeren believes that her friend Coco Chanel wanted the story to continue: she sells the little jewel to help secure the bank loan.
17. 1995Little by little the Sony boutique turns into an avant-garde web café. France takes a long time to get online, and while Paris hotels have no connection, American tourists come to the internet café. The first Visit site comes alive in California, soon followed by other destinations where the internet was born.
18. 1998Times are difficult, as there are not enough customers. The electricity is turned off every few months, but the clients are not people you meet every day: one was on the first flight to the Moon, another was the personal assistant of Jon Postel. Steve Jobs offers the café an iMac, so that Apple becomes part of the story.
19. 19992 photosCybercafé de Paris, a meeting point of the early web. After becoming friends with an Apollo 11 astronaut, the idea comes up to create the Phone Book of the World.
20. 2003First domain of the VB.com collection registered.
21. 202617 sites of the collection are activated in 2026.