Hunting is Half the Fun

Postcards from Paris…

It all started fairly innocently, several years ago, when Big Guy and I had a couple of days off together and decided to make a quick trip to Paris and Provence. The weather was perfect, which is definitely unusual for Paris in February, and we took it as a small omen that we were destined to be lucky in the City of Light.

We were staying in the 7^th Arrondissement at the Hotel de Tourville, which has been a standby favorite for us for over ten years. Before going out one evening, I did a quick little internet search on one of my most frequented computer “bookmarks” to check the real estate listings at www.justfrancesales.com.

Some people go to Paris to visit museums or catch the latest in haute couture, to eat in fabulous restaurants or experience café life, to stock up on skin products at pharmacies or to attend art auctions and flea markets, to shop in the outdoor markets, to run along the Seine, to attend free concerts, to worship at Notre Dame, to read a book in the Tuileries gardens, to climb the Eiffel tower, to go to a jazz club, to walk in the footsteps of the great American writers, or simply just to sip hot chocolate at Angelina’s.

I go to Paris for all of the above… and to look for an apartment. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to own an apartment in Paris. But it wasn’t until this trip that I actually sat down and did some math and figured out that if I bought the right place for the right price in the perfect location and furnished it beautifully, I could have my apartment and pay for it too. And it just so happened that as I checked the new listings on Just France’s real estate site that evening in February, a beautiful two bedroom apartment just down the street from our hotel, popped up for sale.

(Photo via In Great Detail)

Avenue de la Bourdonnais, Paris

I remember walking up the stately tree lined Avenue de la Bourdonnais, a few steps away from the Eiffel Tower, breathing in the sites, the sounds, the scents and the late afternoon light, and stopping in at one of our regular neighborhood haunts for a feast of escargots and foie gras. “Oh no,” said Big Guy, knowing that look on my face, and recognizing my favorite little yellow French notepad with the tiny grey squares, “here it comes.”

Over dinner, as the wine flowed and the foie gras was devoured, the numbers were chewed on and stretched and reconfigured and manipulated until they could reasonably point to the conclusion that I yearned for, with my fingers just slightly crossed under the table and my most convincing arguments up my sleeve: We (ahem, cough cough) need to invest (key word) in a little pied-a-terre in Paris.

The scene of the crime

In all fairness, we weren’t completely new to this idea, since we are fortunate enough to already own a home in France, having purchased a property in Provence many years ago during a similar moment of romantic judgment lapse (more about that another time) and economic creativity. However our house in the South has turned out to be a wonderful investment in every way, and due to many factors that make it highly desirable – location, amenities and décor, among others – it pays for itself through rentals. So I had a strong leg to stand on when I said I thought we could buy a little piece of paradise in Paris and actually have it pay for itself too.

The next day I emailed the owner of "Just France" and told him about my crazy new idea, which he welcomed with understandable enthusiasm. (We go way back with Just France as they have for years done a beautiful job of representing Les Murets, our house in Provence). Unfortunately, though, we couldn’t arrange to visit the apartment that week since we were on our way to Provence. And had it not been for some fortuitous timing with cooperation from Mother Nature and Air France, to be covered in my next blog, we would have missed it completely.

But on that gorgeous, unseasonably warm evening in February, began a very long and as yet inconclusive search that has taken me to Paris countless times, sometimes on a day’s notice. I have pored over more “for sale” ads, subscribed to more circumspect internet real estate listing services, met with more real estate agents, bankers, architects, interior designers and visited more apartments, up more flights of stairs and across more “pointes de hongrie” thresholds than even I, the house hunter extraordinaire, could imagine. But then again, this has been one of the most fun assignments I’ve ever had.

Perfection? Apartment is called Amaranthe, in the Marais. (photo via Guest Apartment Services)

Although the search is still on and the elusive apartment is yet to be found, the journey has been so fulfilling that I wonder if, when I finally get it and furnish it a la linen and Louis, glammed up with a little Coco and Corbu, the perfect apartment might be just a bit of a letdown , after so many years of hunting. And that is why I’ve decided to share the hunt with you: Because isn’t the hunt half the fun?

Stay tuned … Next week, the hunt begins with “Hardly any Regrets” and the visit to the perfect two bedroom, off of Avenue de la Bourdonnais.

Tata!

A.