In the 1810s and '20s, Paris' Nouvelle Athènes enclave was a wellspring for Europe's romantic intellectuals, enticing the likes of Alexandre Dumas, Frederic Chopin, Victor Hugo, and Paul Gauguin by way of its eclectic jumble of architecture and stable cast of characters. The region's history drew the unnamed buyers of Elle Decor's recent Parisian spread to their 2,600-square-foot Haussmanian apartment, but the building's original herringbone oak floors and 11-foot-high ceilings, not to mention the quick approval of designers Kelli Wilde and Laurent Champeau, was what got them to buy.
At this point, Champeau, a Paris native, and Wilde, a Seattle-born ex-pat, had just left Tino Zervudachi to start their own firm, and were happy to revamp this spread as their first independent project, intrigued by what ED calls the apartment's "major charm": the two salons separated by French doors, an architectural relic known as double séjour (above). Here the sumptuous moldings were repaired, the parquet painted—it was "in such bad shape"—and the rooms were filled with high-end flea market finds, like Jean-Michel Frank-style armchairs and custom-made Belgian rugs. In all, the interiors stick to a quiet gray scheme bruised every once in awhile in purple and gold.
Also in the living room (above), the duo brought in a daybed done up in velvet, flanking it with 1930s glass-and-bronze tables and rehabbing a gilt-wood mirror and marble fireplace that are the apartment's originals.
For the master suite (above), Wilde and Champeau went for "contemporary with a slightly 1930s air." "During that period, designers went from curved to straight lines, less froufrou and more function," Champeau told the magazine. The dining room (below) is marked by a "photo work by Gilbert & George."
The rest of the home is filled with similarly stylish decor accoutrement: papier-mâché mirrors, velvet-upholstered dining chairs, a curved sofa from the 1950s "re-covered in a dove-gray mohair-cotton," and the like. Tour all the rest, over at Elle Decor.
· A Gilded, Glamorous Paris Apartment [Elle Decor]
· All The Printed Page posts [Curbed National]