The Perfect Paris Apartment II

Yesterday we discussed the difficulties of finding the perfect Paris apartment to rent. Whether unrenovated, too renovated, badly located or too expensive, it is a challenge to find just the right place. Let me share a fantasy with you. How about the idea of buying a place and fixing it up just exactly to please oneself? And were we to do so, it wouldn’t be just any old ho-hum apartment. It would have to be… atypique. I have found just the place, let’s take a look (photos from the real estate agency “Espaces Atypique”).

I think we have agreed that the fourth arrondissement, and maybe the third, is interesting, fun and central. It has a concentration of hotels particuliers, the aristocratic town mansions of the 17th century, and earlier. How about if we could get hold of a hotel particulier in the Marais, one that is for sale and in need of work? How about this one?

For sale is the ground floor, terrace and sous sol.

So far, so good, no?

This is killer. Okay, it needs work, but how high is that ceiling? Looks fourteen feet. Look at the light. Imagine a beautifully landscaped courtyard and fountain. Plus, it already has curtains. What more do you want?

Looking the other way, someone has begun to build a mezzanine: exactly what I would do. On the mezzanine would be a bedroom and bath. This large room is 550 square feet, enough so that the front part of the room, nearest the windows, could be left to soar up to its full height.

Beautiful beams. Kitchenette at the back indicates that plumbing rough-in is in place.

Just to give you the vision, here are three finished apartments, all with mezzanines.

Looking down on a large living

room from the mezzanine.

Under this mezzanine, an inviting couch area.

Spiral stairs up to a very open mezzanine space.

But the apartment in question is much more than a big, unfinished space.

You enter through this charming gate…

…and find this large terrace. Perfect for little doggies. A fountain. Statuary. Comfortable furnishings. It is also about 550 square feet.

And at the end of the terrace is a space they are calling ‘the Atelier’.Let’s get a grainy closeup.

That’s the atelier, at the end, with the pretty blue french doors. It is 200 square feet, just right for a studio apartment. See where I’m heading? You have two potential rental apartments, either of which you can live in when you want to be in Paris. Oh! La-la! But that’s not all. Check out this floor plan.