Inside Paris' Most Beautiful Homes
What Martyn Lawrence Bullard found behind the Haussmann facades.
- The CityParis1er, 2e, 6e, 8e and Saint-Ouen
- The EpisodeSix Homesand the world's greatest flea market
- InsideThe Glossaryten terms, histories, rabbit holes
- WatchHomeworthystreaming now on YouTube
"You don't really know a city until you step inside the homes of the people who live there. Architecture telling its accents. Decor as delectable as the local dishes. Personalities who define the places they call home."
Martyn Lawrence Bullard
That is the premise of my new series, Live, Love & Decorate, now streaming on Homeworthy. Six cities. Private homes. The people inside them. Paris is where we begin.
Watch the full episode on Homeworthy
Beyond the facade, into the rooms
Live, Love & Decorate takes you beyond the iconic facades and public squares and into the private spaces at the heart of my favorite cities. In each episode I visit the homes of extraordinary people: designers, gallerists, collectors, and creative visionaries. Their spaces reveal not just beautiful rooms, but the full personality of a city.
This is not a renovation show. This is not about before and after. It is about what is inside.
Paris, behind the Haussmann facades
Everyone knows the rooftops, the boulevards, the bridges. Very few people ever see the private apartments, the hidden ateliers, the rooms where French creative life actually happens. Here is where we go.
Klaus Rosenthal's Napoleon III Apartment
One of the most dramatic private apartments in Paris. Klaus has made his home inside a building whose interior was designed by the same man who created Napoleon III's apartments in the Louvre. This is not a decorative coincidence. This is the actual source material.
We talk about eclecticism, about the Murano chandelier he went to Venice to find, and about why restoring something old sometimes means making it look deliberately dirty.
Pierre Frey: Home and Atelier
Pierre Frey is one of the last independent, family-owned textile houses in Paris, founded in 1935. I visit the family apartment that sits directly above their historic atelier, a 17th century building that has housed the company and the family for decades. Three generations. Nearly ninety years of French textile design. All of it very much alive.
Hotel de Crillon
One of the most iconic addresses in the world. The Crillon was commissioned by Louis XV, designed by the architect of Versailles, and overlooks the Place de la Concorde, the very square where Marie Antoinette was executed. The suite was reimagined by designer Aline Asmar d'Amman using an all-female team of France's greatest artisans.
Legend says Marie Antoinette herself practiced piano in this salon. The spirit is very much present.
Marche aux Puces de Saint-Ouen
The greatest flea market in the world is not a secret. It is, however, endlessly surprising. Designer Daniel Bismuth tells me to meet him at the Marche Biron on Saturday. I go. I find things. That is all I will say.
Daniel Bismuth's Haussmann Apartment
Daniel and his brother Michel run an interior design and architecture studio in Paris. Daniel's apartment is an effortless collision of Art Deco, Moorish influence, mid-century modern, and contemporary furniture of his own design. He calls it a mise en scene. He is not wrong.
Stephanie Coutas's Modern Parisian Flat
Stephanie lives inside a grand Haussmann building from the 1870s, and the interior is entirely her own: contemporary, bold, furnished with her own collection. A masterclass in weaving modern sophistication into a historic shell.
Francois Laffanour's Collector's Home
Francois has run his gallery, Downtown, for over forty years. It is the premier destination for 20th century design. His private apartment is not a gallery. It is a home: Jean Prouve, Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Nakashima. All of it lived in, used, and deeply loved.
"There are few cities as immortalized as Paris. Here, the grandeur of a decadent past meets the relentless momentum of the future. Centuries-old architecture is reborn through unsparing modern vision."Martyn Lawrence Bullard
Ten things to know before, or after, you watch
Marie Antoinette and the Hotel de Crillon
The Crillon sits on the Place de la Concorde, the square where Marie Antoinette was guillotined in 1793. Commissioned by Louis XV, designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, the architect of Versailles, and completed in 1758 as a private aristocratic residence. It became a hotel in 1909. Legend says Marie Antoinette practiced piano in what is now her suite, reimagined by Aline Asmar d'Amman with an all-female team of artisans. The Aubusson tapestry alone took 18 months to restore.
Napoleon III Style, or Second Empire
Napoleon III ruled France from 1852 to 1870, and his reign produced one of the most recognizable decorative styles in history. Think ornate gilded boiserie, symmetrical interiors, heavy velvet drapery, elaborate frescoed ceilings, mythological motifs, and the sense that excess is not a vice but a virtue. Klaus Rosenthal's apartment was designed by the same hand responsible for Napoleon III's private apartments in the Louvre. This is the actual source material.
Haussmannization
Between 1853 and 1870, Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann demolished large sections of medieval Paris under Napoleon III's orders and replaced them with the boulevards and apartment buildings that define the city today. Wide diagonal avenues, uniform stone facades, seven-story height limits, and the particular proportions of its apartments: high ceilings, tall windows, formal reception rooms designed for entertaining. That scale is Haussmann's legacy.
Patina
Patina is the finish that time and use leave on a surface: the darkening of brass, the mellowing of lacquer, the wear on gilded molding. In design, patina is not a flaw. It is evidence of authenticity. When you restore a 19th century apartment, everything looks shockingly bright and brand new. So the craftsmen go back in and deliberately age it back down. Knowing how to age something correctly is as skilled as knowing how to clean it.
Murano Glass
Murano, an island in the Venetian lagoon, has been the center of European glassmaking since 1291, when Venice moved its glassmakers there to contain fire risk and protect trade secrets. Klaus Rosenthal's salon chandelier is Murano. He went to Venice specifically to find it. It mixes amethyst, gilded, semi-transparent, pink, and near-black glass. A contemporary classic: traditional from across the room, wild when you get close.
Lesage and Haute Couture in Interiors
Lesage is one of France's most storied embroidery houses, founded in 1924 and eventually acquired by Chanel. A single Lesage-embroidered garment can represent thousands of hours of hand work. In the Marie Antoinette suite, the curtains are embroidered by a Lesage affiliate atelier. The logic is breathtaking: Marie Antoinette was the patron of the grandest French craft of her age, so the suite asks what she would commission today.
Pierre Frey, a Family Legacy
Pierre Frey was founded in Paris in 1935. Three generations later, the family remains independent. Patrick has been creative director since 1969, and his sons Pierre and Vincent run the company today. The family apartment sits directly above the historic headquarters on Rue du Mail in the 2nd arrondissement, a 17th century building. Its survival as a creative family business across nearly ninety years is increasingly rare in French luxury. Martyn calls it a French legend. He is not overstating.
Boiserie
Boiserie is the carved wood paneling that lines the walls of grand French interiors, typically floor to ceiling, painted or gilded, featuring elaborate moldings, medallions, and decorative motifs. The term comes from the French word for wood, bois. Creating true boiserie is extraordinarily skilled, hand-carved by craftsmen trained in techniques that have changed very little since the 17th century. Martyn sees it twice in this episode: in Klaus Rosenthal's Napoleon III apartment and again in Daniel Bismuth's Haussmann flat.
Mise en Scene
A French term meaning placing on stage. In film, it is the deliberate arrangement of everything the audience sees. Daniel Bismuth uses it to describe a black wall in his apartment that serves as a frame, a backdrop, a way of directing the eye to what matters. The idea that a designer thinks the way a film director thinks is one of the governing philosophies of great Parisian interiors. It is why they photograph so well. They are designed to be seen.
Marche aux Puces de Saint-Ouen
On the northern edge of Paris, the largest antique market in the world sprawls across more than 17 acres and contains over 2,000 vendors operating across fifteen named markets, including Biron, Dauphine, Paul Bert, and Serpette. It has run since the 19th century, when second-hand dealers gathered at the city limits to avoid the taxes on goods sold inside Paris. Today it is the single greatest source for antique furniture, vintage lighting, and 20th century design. Martyn calls it his personal lotus-eaters.
The hands behind the rooms
Pierre Frey
One of the last independent, family-owned French textile houses. Patrick Frey has led the creative direction since 1969, and the third generation, Pierre and Vincent, runs it today from the historic headquarters on Rue du Mail. The family lives above the atelier, in a 17th century building that has held both the company and the family for decades.
Their fabrics, woven, printed, and embroidered, are among the most collected in the world, and their survival as an independent creative house is, as Martyn puts it, a French legend.
Aline Asmar d'Amman
The Lebanese-French architect and designer behind the reimagined Marie Antoinette suite at the Hotel de Crillon. Her studio, Culture in Architecture, is known for marrying raw materials with high craft and for a deep literacy in history.
For the Crillon she assembled an all-female team of France's greatest artisans, a deliberate tribute to the queen who was the original patron of French craft. The result is a suite that does not recreate the past so much as ask what it would commission now.
Where Martyn goes this episode
Every address from the episode, in one place. Private residences are noted as such.
Klaus Rosenthal
Pierre Frey
Hotel de Crillon
Marche aux Puces
Daniel Bismuth
Stephanie Coutas
Downtown Gallery
"Paris never stands still. It reinvents, it reimagines, it refuses to be defined by any single moment in time. What makes this city extraordinary isn't just its beauty. It's the people daring enough to reinterpret it."Martyn Lawrence Bullard
Watch the episode
Live, Love & Decorate is now streaming on Homeworthy. Paris is just the beginning.