Before & After: Elegant Arches and Curves Shape Up a Fusty Paris Flat

Paris apartments with open views are hard to come by, so when Pierre Vérité and Allira Swick found one with three rooms of south-facing windows overlooking the verdant landscape of Père Lachaise cemetery, what also serves as the city’s largest green space, they knew they’d found something special. And there was more to love: antique chandeliers, plaster medallions, and wood paneling. Yet the apartment had not been updated since 1963 by its most recent inhabitant, a woman in her ’90s.

Pierre and Allira wanted to preserve some of its antique charms while making it their own. "We wanted the apartment to reflect Pierre and I, our tastes, and also how different we are as people and see how that could marry together, with me being Australian and him being French," said Allira. As a native of Western Australia, Allira gravitated toward earthy, matte, porous finishes that hearkened to a warm outdoor climate. Pierre envisioned a clean modern vibe animated by historic details.

Interior architect Asma Florençon of Atelier Varenne took cues from their different sensibilities, iterating the flat’s finishes and adding new ones to create something that felt whole. "It was a matter of putting different things together in a way that brought out the best features of the space, but with an added layer of what the couple were bringing to it with the next chapter of their lives," Florençon says.

Before: Dining Room

After: Dining Room

She moved the primary bedroom to the opposite end of the plan, turning the space into a living room and widening the doorway between it and the dining room with a segmental arch, which became a motif for the renovation. It’s a common element in Paris, Florençon points out. "I think of it as a return to origins," she says.

Florençon extended the original wall paneling of the dining room into the living room, where built-in bookshelves frame a pink marble mantle Pierre and Allira found on Leboncoin, an online marketplace in France. The couple drove east all the way to the edge of Luxembourg and hauled it back to Paris with a truck.

Pierre and Allira negotiated with the previous owner to retain the antique chandelier, which they cleaned by hand and moved into the living room. Ceramic lamps in the dining room and a pier mirror on top of the mantle echo the soft curve of the segmental arches. The plaster medallions above the chandeliers could not be preserved because of water damage, but Florençon replaced them with polyurethane ones.

Before: Living Room