When Matt and Leonard first started working with Paris Property Group to find their pied-a-terre in Paris, the Australian couple had a fairly general brief: two bedrooms + two baths in the Marais with “something special about it.” This is often the case with second-home Paris buyers – they’ll know it when they see it. Along the way, we try to find a property that offers exceptional value, while creating some sense of magic for our client. In this case we succeeded on all fronts.

After a week of intensive looking, the apartment they ultimately selected was one of the first that they visited. Recently remodeled and in good condition, the property was on the rue Rambuteau, their ‘dream’ street near the Pompidou art museum. For Matt and Leonard, the apartment’s special something was the view from the master bedroom overlooking the Anne Frank memorial park and its chestnut tree, grown from a cutting taken from the original tree Anne Frank wrote about in her diary:

Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs, from my favourite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy.

With careers that center around human rights and charitable endeavors, the view is a powerful reminder to the pair of what is important to them, and a connection between their lives in Paris and Australia. The interior design of the apartment has similar echoes that connect their two homes: contemporary art from their collection in Australia decorates the walls, and a hidden door in a paneled wall conceals the master bedroom suite in a poignant nod to Anne Frank.