Mid-century design by French heavyweights like Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret is the stuff of museum exhibitions, coffee-table tomes and, to some degree, of fantasy. Those distinguished Parisian silhouettes may play well at auction with cultivated home-owners, but it is rare to experience them in the wild.

Which is what makes a new holiday let called Jacob from Les Maisons CAB so special for visitors who appreciate the design legacy of Paris as deeply as the city itself. A former artist’s studio in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the apartment has been curated in the original sense, furnished with pieces from the 1950s to the 1980s, along with significant art and avant-garde sculpture. Belgian architect and interior designer Olivier Dwek transformed the 1930s property, conjuring metallic alcoves and swaths of gold carpeting against a creamy white 75sqm canvas.

Motivated by a longtime passion for collecting heritage pieces, Dwek organised an armchair by Pierre Paulin and a coatrack by Pierre Jeanneret around a bowed armless Shorty sofa by Vladimir Kagan, overlooked by a conceptual canvas by Michel Parmentier from 1984. In one of the two bedrooms is a desk and chair by Jean Prouvé; the two bathrooms feature stools by Charlotte Perriand. And in the hallway is Nicolas Chardon’s ‘Marfa’ painting from 2023. There are 5.5m ceilings and west-facing windows overlooking a quiet courtyard.

Jacob is the eighth holiday property from Les Maisons CAB, rental arm of the art foundation CAB, based in Brussels and Saint-Paul-de-Vence — but the first in Paris and possibly the only flat in the city with a condensed collection of such calibre. The experience of living with the French mid-century masters might only be surpassed at legendary locations like Les Arcs, where Perriand led the architectural and interior design of several modernist ski chalets from 1968 to 1989. She developed space-saving ‘integrated apartments’ in distinctive ‘ski slope’ structures and integrated her own furnishings.

Jacob is far more accessible physically, positioned near Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots on the Rive Gauche, true to the heritage theme. Prices are unpublished but sit below rates for the average five-star hotel room. And it sleeps four.

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