A secret garden in the heart of the 8th, the neighbourhood surrounding Parc Monceau exudes a comfortable calm. The buildings are Haussmannian yet have a country flourish. Early morning, you can buy a croissant at Valois as if in a village square. Along rue de Monceau CT Loo’s red pagoda locks eyes with the giant Buddhas that smile, placidly, from the Musée Cernuschi. Here, the homes of the Jacquemart-Andrés or Camondos became museums. Invite yourself round to the residences of the wealthiest of days gone by, and make the most of their nests. History muddles with the day-to-day, elegance on a whim pervades the streets, and you lose yourself in the shade of Chartres’ "folly" that would one day become Parc Monceau. What we’d call ‘the art of living’…
This business district is also a family neighbourhood. In the large roomy Haussmannian buildings, law firms rub shoulders with smart apartments that are as expansive as they are bourgeois. If the mansion houses that border Parc Monceau attract the world’s greatest fortunes, the rest of the quartier is home to a discreet and refined population concerned with calm and comfort, where everybody knows each other. The elegance of the street plan, these large and clean roads with their proximity to the park (which often appears fleetingly at the end of the streets), makes this a neighbourhood that appeals to Parisians smitten with its quietude, living as if at a country club.
Neighbourhood Life :
this is a world in which contrast reigns. Between the morning and evening hustle and bustle when slick lawyers and wealthy financiers come and go from their offices. Between stone and greenery, the past and the present, high-energy and lassitude. Mere moments from étoile, Concorde, and the Champs élysées, here, one enjoys absolute calm that is a truly Parisian luxury.
Not to be missed :
the charming incongruity of Parc Monceau, surrounded by mansion houses that seem unaffected by the passing of time.
