I'd like to buy this fixer upper in Paris. Someday...32 meters on the 4th floor, no elevator and suggested asking price 128,000.00 Euros. Not bad in the Sentier, the wholesale rag trade area threaded by the rue Saint Denis, the hooker street.
The area fascinates me and I wrote about it in Murder in the Sentier. A run down, ungentrified area like the Marais used to be.
In my Dictionaire Historique des Rues des Paris it cites rue Beauregard in the 16th century was formerly on the hill of Gravois and gave to a view of the countryside. Built over the Charles V wall and on the ancient rubble from the tenth century. Quite a bit of the Sentier stands on ancient and medieval garbage sites, in those days they emptied the trash over the wall and gave rise to the hills in the Sentier.
But if by chance I could afford - and with a child in college that won't be in the near future - I'd need to go to City of Paris auction and bid for it with a notaire's assistance. The whole auction is conducted since Voltaire's time by the bougie - the candle. The candle is lit, the property described and shown on power point, the bids taken and yet, no deal is complete without the snuffing of the candle which concludes the deal.
And you, any ideas on your dream fixer upper?
Cara - Tuesday
Friends– a family– each bought in different region– each beautiful. The parents own in the village of Gadagne (Provence), the aunt lives in an orchard in Alsace, and the son took in a scenic view on the French side near Genève.
ReplyDeleteAll are beautiful, but the son's old farmhouse is currently the most challenging. He bought a combined half house, half barn on a hill above a valley that sweeps up to a forest, topped by mountains, as if out of the Sound of Music. I laid in part of the wiring, but there is so much work, the house will take years. Worth it, though.
A wonderful lifetime project Leigh. You did the wiring...do you make house calls :)
ReplyDeleteMy friends bought a quarter of an abandoned hamlet in the Cevennes. Did I forgot ruined and walls only standing? Another lifetime project.
The ultimate 'dream fixer upper' ? In a lovely little village on the edge of a forest in South Bohemia (Czech Rep) we have a plot of land, but nothing on it yet... one day we'll get round to it !
ReplyDeleteOh, I have so many dream fixer-uppers...but one in Paris wouldn't be bad. Can I steal yours for now? Not very creative, I know, but I'm not feeling very crative at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I just ordered a book from each of the authors on this site from BookDepository.com (except Leighton, had to order that one seperately, fyi). They have free shipping and this blog has intrigued me for so long that I had to check out how you all do in your professional writing! I'll let you know how you measure up. :P Give me a month to get through all six books, then I'll post a special Murder is Everywhere reading post on my blog.
Michele
SouthernCityMysteries
Maybe this is why I'll never have my own dream fixer-upper, because I spend all my money on books!
ReplyDeleteMichele
SouthernCityMysteries
I was wrong, I found Leighton's books there--Gage not Cage! No worries.
ReplyDeleteMichele
SouthernCityMysteries
Hi Cara,
ReplyDeletewhere do they come up with these prices? Right now you could make a killing buying real estate in Iceland but I'm afraid you would have to swap baguettes for flatbread and fois gras for fermented testicles.
bye Yrsa
Hey Yrsa and Michele,
ReplyDeletePrices in Paris, as I'm sure you know, climb by the minute. In their terms this price is a bargain...but it could go way over the asking price. I peeked in a fixer-upper in the Latin Quarter, dripping mildewed walls, plumbing unchanged from the turn of the century, ripped up floorboards... and battled scores of Parisians bargain shopping for a fixer upper...up shot is the place went for close to a mil Euros...
out of my universe,
Cara