Paris is best known for its Haussmannian buildings and romantic garret lofts but, look a little harder and you’ll find a wide variety of architectural treasures.
We’ve picked out six of the best properties for sale in the capital right now, including everything from a contemporary home to a revived factory.
Glass-capped Montmartre house with a Japanese garden
3 bedrooms; €1.68m, via Patrice Besse
East and Western cultures meet inside this lofty Montmartre maison, which has a soaring 10-metre-high Japanese garden at its heart, planted with bamboo. The building was originally an industrial space and has been fashioned as a three-bedroom home, set across three levels. Taking centre stage is a curved wooden staircase, which leads up to the dining room, kitchen and living room, overlooking the indoor garden below. Bedrooms can be found on the lower two floors of the Montmartre property, while a giant glass-panelled roof diffusing light down into the cavernous spaces below. Explore its rooms.
Metalworks loft in Saint Germain-en-Laye
3 bedrooms; €2.2m via Espaces Atypiques
Paris has its fair share of industrial spaces that have been reborn through canny adaptive reuse, and this loft is no exception. The 440 sqm pad sits inside a 1970s converted metalworks plant in Saint Germain-en-Laye and is currently used as gallery and office space. With a bit of imagination, it could be transformed into a flexible live/work space. The lower space is a presently a showroom, complete with resin concrete floors and a towering central atrium which draws light into the space. Steel support beams have also been left exposed, while the upper level is capped by a trussed ceiling and has offices divided by glass and steel partitions. See more of the Paris live/work loft.
Architect’s home in the Butte aux Cailles
4 bedrooms;€3.55m, via Propriétés Parisiennes
This wood-clad house is a contemporary surprise in the hilltop Butte aux Cailles neighbourhood, set within the 13th arrondissement. The architect’s home is arranged around a courtyard garden and comes with a swimming pool, hammam, sauna and four bedrooms and bathrooms. Floor-to-ceiling glass doors open the house to the outdoors.
Eighteenth-century maison in the Latin Quarter
6 bedrooms; €21.5m, via Propriétés Parisiennes
This 18th-century grande dame is listed as a Historic Monument and has undergone a top-to-toe renovation. Its ornately appointed rooms retain their original details, including herringbone parquet flooring, mouldings, wood panelling, sash windows and huge fireplaces, while its leafy garden has been carefully manicured. The six-bedroom Paris property has been updated for the 21st-century, with modern fittings and smart home technologies. It sits close to the Pantheon in the city’s Latin Quarter.
Renovation challenge in the 16th arrondissement
2 bedrooms; €3m, via Christie’s International Realty
Located in the ‘Upper East Side of Paris’, this blank canvas attic apartment offers the opportunity to get your hands dirty… The two-bedroom fixer-upper sits in a 1900s building with views of the Eiffel Tower, and has white-washed walls and raftered ceilings. Currently a muddle of rooms, the Paris apartment would work well as an open plan penthouse loft – if you’ve got the vision.
Art museum in Montparnasse
2+ bedrooms; €5.39m, via Daniel Féau
This Montparnasse pad is currently the home of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation and is a mix of gallery space, offices and an archive. Emile Molinié designed the Art Deco building in 1930, and architects Ceria and Coupel converted it for its present use. Exhibition halls occupy the lower three levels, while a split level duplex, with kitchen, bathroom and offices, fill the upper two floors. The Paris property has huge expanses of glass, as well as timber raftered ceilings, concrete floors and (of course) white walls. The foundation moves out next month, and the building is being touted for residential or mixed commercial use. Have a look around.
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