In the 7th, Paris Is Earning

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FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
In the 7th, Paris Is Earning
The city’s business elite call it home, drawn to riverfront apartments and
urban mansions
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Paris’s 7th arrondissement, a wedge along the Left Bank, has some of the city’s leading tourist
attractions, like the Eiffel Tower. Over the past few years, the 7th has replaced the 16th arrondissement
as
the district of as
choice
for top of choice for top ...
arrondissement
the district
By J.S. MARCUS
Jan. 29, 2015 10:16 a.m. ET
Paris’s 7th arrondissement, a wedge along the Left Bank, has some of the city’s leading
tourist attractions, including the Eiffel Tower and the Musée d’Orsay. But when the
tourists depart for the evening, the CEOs head there for home.
“The whole CAC 40 now lives in the 7th,” says Louis Benech, a Parisian landscape
architect, invoking the French key stock index and the people who run the listed
companies.
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Mr. Benech’s clients in the 7th arrondissement include François Pinault, the entrepreneur
and honorary chairman of Kering, the Paris-based conglomerate that controls brands such
as Gucci and Saint Laurent. Bernard Arnault , chairman of LVMH and its stable of brands
like Dior and Louis Vuitton, also has a home there. Representatives of Messrs. Pinault and
Arnault didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Interior designer Jean-Louis Deniot installed cabinets covered in hammered sterling silver in the kitchen of a
home he bought and renovated in the 7th arrondissement. PHOTO: XAVIER BÉJOT
Managers and business executives have been lured to the 7th from the Right Bank’s 16th
arrondissement, which was the stomping ground of the wealthy for more than a century.
The 7th is the arrondissement with the highest per-capita income in Paris.
“It’s not just half-a-dozen rich guys,” says Jules Caris, managing director of La Galerie de
l’Immobilier, a Left Bank real-estate agency, “but 300 to 400 high earners” who wouldn’t
live anywhere else.
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Long associated with French nobility, the area is dominated by embassies and government
ministries in historic buildings. It retains its cachet despite declining real-estate prices in
Paris overall, amid stagnant growth and high taxes that have sent some high earners to
other European countries.
In the 7th, the median price of an apartment was $1,141 a square foot in the third quarter
of 2014, down 9% from 2012, compared with a drop of 4% in Paris overall in the period.
Mr. Deniot added marble floors to his apartment’s entryway. PHOTO: XAVIER BÉJOT
Those prices lag behind the neighboring 6th arrondissement, Paris’s most expensive, and
the 4th, which includes the heart of the gentrified Marais district and the exclusive ÎleSaint-Louis island.
But prices in the most exclusive corners of the 7th are sharply higher. The biggest change
in the arrondissement, agents say, is the rise in demand—and in prices—for Gros-Caillou,
a neighborhood on the outer edge of the district, close to the Eiffel Tower. Jérôme Le
Breton, a Parisian notary based in the 7th, says prices in Gros-Caillou have surged 28.6%
over the past five years, compared with a 34.6% jump for Saint-Thomas-d’Acquin, the
7th’s most expensive address.
The key selling point for buyers of high-end homes is that the district has nearly cornered
the market on Paris’s two most prestigious types of residences: the riverfront apartment
and the hôtel particulier, or urban mansion.
The most desirable mansions were built by aristocratic families in the decades before the
French Revolution. A prime 18th-century hôtel particulier could command $90 million or
more, says Marie-Hélène Lundgreen, director of Belles demeures de France, the Parisbased agency affiliated with Christie’s International Real Estate. Such properties come up
for sale a few times a decade.
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The Deniot home has a living room with a Turkish-marble fireplace designed by Mr. Deniot and custom-painted
walls and ceiling by Mathias Kiss. PHOTO: XAVIER BÉJOT
Jean-Louis Deniot bought his 1,184-square-foot apartment in the Saint-Thomas-d’Acquin neighborhood for $1.25
million in 2011 and spent about $624,000 in renovations. PHOTO: ED ALCOCK FOR THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL
This year, an 18th-century hôtel particulier in the Saint-Thomas-d’Acquin neighborhood
sold for $59 million to a French buyer, says Pascale Constans, managing director of
Propriétés Parisiennes, an affiliate of Sotheby’s International Realty. The property
includes 11,836 square feet of living space and 6,456 square feet of gardens.
To meet the need for mansion-style homes in the 7th, a new luxury development, 140 rue
de Grenelle, was converted out of the sprawling stables of a hôtel particulier once
belonging to Marshall Ferdinand Foch, the WWI military leader. It contains 16 units
clustered around a gated lane.
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Ten of the 16 have sold, says Ms. Lundgreen, who is handling the development. A fourbedroom, 3,520-square-foot unit is on the market for $11.3 million. Another fourbedroom unit—5,165 square feet, with a rooftop terrace and dramatic views of the Eiffel
Tower and the dome of the 17th-century Hôtel des Invalides complex—is listed for $26.1
million.
Positioned at a wide bend of the Seine, the 7th also has a huge share of Paris’s prime
riverfront properties. Views can take in the whole of central Paris, including the Eiffel
Tower, the Louvre and adjoining Tuileries garden across the river. Prices for these
properties, even in today’s depressed market, can easily exceed $2,108 a square foot.
A two-bedroom, two-bathroom upper-floor apartment for sale on the Quai Anatole France
has an asking price of $7.04 million. Recently refurbished by Parisian interior designer
Pierre Yovanovitch, the 2,098-square-foot home has salvaged wooden floors.
Paris interior designer Jean-Louis Deniot bought a second-floor apartment on rue de Lille,
in Saint-Thomas-d’Acquin, in 2011. The 1,184-square-foot home has two bedrooms and
two bathrooms.
Mr. Deniot says he paid about $1,054 a square foot, or $1.25 million, for the apartment
when prices were near recent peaks—then spent about $527 a square foot, or $624,000,
fixing it up.
“I’m stuck,” says the 40-year-old designer, noting the falling prices and new tax policies
that hinder flipping properties. Looking around his home, he adds, “Sometimes it’s nice to
be stuck.”
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