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
