Just a stone’s throw from the Bois de Boulogne, in the chic 16th arrondissement of Paris famed for its art nouveau flourishes, is the striking five-storey mansion that is home to Suzanne Tise-Isoré. Designed in the 1880s by architect Gustave Brière, it mixes elements of gothic and Second Empire style, and with its eccentric brick facade is a far cry from the nearby uniform Haussmann buildings.
“My husband Jean-Claude, who works in real estate, first saw the house in the 1980s, and later when it came up for sale we both viewed it, and despite the wildly painted green and purple interior, we just fell in love with all of the original decorative features,” says Suzanne.
“The former courtyard and stables had also been turned into a pool room, with stairs leading up to a roof terrace, and as we had two young children at the time, we thought it would be the perfect family home with that outdoor space.”
The coup de foudre struck with the property 16 years ago and now that the children have flown the nest, the couple’s love for it continues, shared with their dog Djinnie. With its past still intact, the mansion has evolved into an elegant home that serves as a canvas for their sophisticated design tastes, which span the eras – influenced by Suzanne’s eye as an art historian and editorial director of style and design at the Paris publishing house Flammarion.
As you walk through the ornate carved stone porte-cochère, you are greeted by dramatic black and scarlet walls and a beautifully patterned mosaic-tiled floor by Maw & Co.
There are lofty ceilings and double-height doors in all of the rooms, which open into one another in the square layout, with a basement laundry room and a guest apartment on the ground floor with its own door to the street. The first-floor space shifts from château-style kitchen as the hub of the house, to dining room. The second floor has one master bedroom and two bathrooms. The third floor is a spectacular, vast open lounge salon with adjoining office painted in lead grey (Farrow & Ball Plummett), and a TV room with a coral velvet sofa from AM.PM and patterned rug by Zara Home. On the fourth floor is a bedroom and large bathroom, and on the fifth and top floor is the former chambre de bonne, or maid’s room, that by raising the roof has been given over to a newly converted 60sq m loft space with a small kitchen, bathroom and terrace.
The architectural grandeur has been immaculately preserved in the couple’s part restoration, part revamp. “We couldn’t bear to strip all of that old detail and history away and it be lost forever, so we worked around it and kept it where possible,” explains Suzanne.
In the kitchen, where Louis Poulsen PH5 pendant lights hang, sleek SieMatic and Viking stainless steel cabinetry and appliances have been installed. Vintage cast-iron radiators were added on all levels, as well as noise-blocking double-opening doors over the floor-to-ceiling windows in the master bedroom. “It’s like being inside a bank vault now. It’s so quiet,” laughs Suzanne.
The generously scaled lounge has original ceiling carvings, exposed gothic timber beams and wall panelling, with 1920s parquet wood flooring. Light floods in through a huge stained-glass window and lends the room the serenity of a church. “It’s a space we do a lot of entertaining in,” she says.
The monumental fireplace, with its carved wood embellishments, dominates one end of the room, offset with contemporary angular modern furniture by B&B Italia.
The palette is moody black and brown (Farrow & Ball Railings and Pantalon) absorbing the blinding summer light and reflective pastel hues of the window panes with their neo-gothic figures “which used to make the walls look pink”.
The look is pared back and stately, with some sharp architectural adjustments – including a reassuringly sturdy steel-beam frame built to support the room’s mezzanine gallery, with metal railings and a spiral staircase that snakes its way downwards from the fourth floor. Other structural interventions included narrowing the main staircase that runs up through the house to install a glass lift in the centre.
The overall decor is unfussy, effortlessly blending old with new. “We wanted the house itself to be the star of the show. We kept all of our design taste super simple with neutral colours so things wouldn’t compete and the house could do all the talking design-wise,” says Suzanne. Beyond the lounge, colours are more restrained, mostly white and grey shades, with scattered jewel-toned textiles adding warmth.
In Suzanne’s bathroom, with its sumptuous clawfoot bath, the minty green and cream walls are inspired by the ceramic tiles in the bathroom of the Musée Nissim de Camondo – a private Paris mansion housing 18th-century French furniture and art. “I’ve been very lucky to work with lots of decorators and visited a lot of historic houses,” she says. “So I get ideas and then include my own tiny reference to them somewhere in this house.”
There is a diverse mix of Saint-Ouen flea-market finds, designer purchases and eclectic treasures from their travels. A pair of 1980s black leather Le Corbusier LC2 chairs by Cassina and a Biedermeier console made of stag horns sit proudly in the dining room, with its amber glass 1930s Venini chandelier, which illuminates the ceiling. Elsewhere in the kitchen, ornamental Cloisonné vases stand atop an antique black lacquered Chinese cabinet that houses pretty ceramic pots and fluted glasses. In Suzanne’s office are 1890s Arts and Crafts chairs from the Czech Republic and a Polaroid Desk Lamp 114 designed by Walter Dorwin Teague in 1939.
“This house reflects everything I’ve always loved and collected, or studied, from the 19th century right up to the 1940s – everything I’m aesthetically interested in,” she says.
An extensive photography collection also interrupts the ample spaces of wall on each floor, from the dreamy landscapes of Ophélie Asch to the poetic fragments of life captured by Johan Strindberg, and paintings by the French artist Nathalie Bret.
It’s an impressive home that wears its duality well, honouring its sense of history and projecting a bright outlook toward its future.
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