private mansion for sale Val de Grace district of Paris 5ᵉ, France

Close to the Luxembourg Gardens, in a small Directoire-style hotel overlooking the garden, a 130 m² duplex apartment with a salon decorated under historical monument classification. The apartment occupies the right wing of a small private hotel listed as a historical monument, hidden from the street by a modern building designed by Jean Dubuisson, a laureate of the Grand Prix de Rome in 1945. A caretaker resides on the premises. A first glass airlock, protected by a code followed by an intercom, leads to a vast hall under video surveillance, dressed in pale beige marble. Through large glass walls, a shaded garden with white gravel paths reveals itself, planted with acacias and sycamores, embellished with small circular flower beds combining rhododendrons, ivy, and hydrangeas. At the end of the 19th century, it housed artists' workshops. Alfons Mucha and Jean Dupas notably worked there. Built in 1796, the hotel Scelles is a remarkable specimen of late 18th-century architecture. Designed for the sculptor and marble worker François Scelles, the building occupies part of the domain of the convent of the Carmelites, sold as national property during the Revolution. The facade of the hotel, strictly ordered, is raised one story above the ground floor and opens through five bays on either side of a central body of lodging. This is set between two thin marble pilasters in a very slight projection, elevated, and adorned on the noble floor with three triangular pediments. A witness of the 17th century, the cornice of stone balusters announces, with its flat roof, the French-style covering of the 18th century. The second floor of the central body dominates the facade with its three windows with crossettes surmounted by a sculpted tie. Two stone consoles support the whole, surmounted by a curvilinear pediment pierced by an oculus sheltering the supposed bust of François Scelles. A private entrance, at the right angle of the facade, serves two lodgings. The access door reveals a hall decorated with a cloakroom as well as a staircase leading to the first floor. The facade rhythmically features six tall windows doubled with wooden shutters, exposed to the southwest and overlooking the garden; this level consists of a kitchen, a dining room of nearly 18 m², and, in succession, a bedroom of about 15 m², accompanied by its bathroom and wardrobe. Adjacent to the dining room and listed in the inventory of historical monuments, a reception room of approximately 38 m², with a vaulted ceiling, is pierced to the west by a wide arched transom. The interior decoration of the large salon, built in place of the former oratory of Louise de La Vallière, is certainly unique in France due to the quality, diversity, and rarity of the marbles covering its walls. These marbles are presented in shades of chip, red from Languedoc, and green from the Pyrenees. Pilasters of purple breccia topped with capitals support a molded cornice that frames a wide painted border in grisaille, inspired by Pompeii, where women dressed in antiquity dance on either side of famous men's busts represented in trompe-l'œil within medallions. Massive mahogany double doors close all exits. The level also includes guest toilets. In the dining room, a wooden staircase leads to a second mansard level. Two bedrooms of approximately 10 and 16 m² with exposed beams, a bathroom, and separate toilets occupy the upper floor. An underground parking space and a cellar, both accessible by elevator, complete the property.This description has been automatically translated from French.