Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-05-20
HOME LIFE IN PARIS
Apartment Houses the Rule and
Not the Exception.
THEIR GOOD And BAD POINTS
Movement on Foot to Better the
Architectural Conditions.
RENTS STEADILY RISING

| Special Cores pondence of The Evening Star.
PARIS, May IL, 1899
For many years the regular beauty of the
| Paris street has been the pride and solace
of the citizen. The Paris street. like every
| other, being an open way between two rows
| of houses, the beauty of the street has
! been, in great part, the beauty of the
| houses. Certainly the uniformity of these
great seven-story buildings, each sheltering
| a dozen or more families, gives the Partisan
| eye unending vistas of cheerful dignity and
| munifcence. You would not think it could
| be done too well; yet this is exactly what
| has happened. Architectural eccentricity
| has been discouraged so well by the watch
| full municipal censorship that originality
| and personal fancy long ago went to sleep.
They now say the Paris apartment houses
are too regular too uniform; and the COM
plant has gone SO far that the municipal
council has thought fit to offer prizes to
the six architects and owners of new build
ings best embellshing the public way.
1t is called the monthly Concours de
FacadeS. The priZe-winning owners are
exempted from half the street tax, the
architects receive gold medals and the
contractors, even, get bronze medals But
they make enough to gid them.
/ myself live just around the corner from
one of these prize winning edifices, that OF
the Avenue d'Antin, No. 81. The new
house shines yellow in the gray spring
sunlight, in the midst Of grayer mansions;
toned down so thoroughly by wind ana
weather that the eye Immediately is caught
by the rich carving and the soft CaSh
stone which makes 1t poSSlDle. Across lil0
street and then across a little grove the
new and permanent Beaux Arts palace OF
the coming exposition presents the same
prodigality of carving. The creafn-c"loi 90
stone comes fresh from the Caen quaFrteN,
Oh. ~ = RA
nv any amateur with a jack-knife or
broken bottle. Those who imagine that the
decoration of Partisan facadeS Is StuS,'
are mistaken; the ineXhauSuhle 'aeI qust =,
ries have been a precious resource to'
PARIS buiIders The stone hardenS 4dlchl9
in the weather. tones down TO a dui gray
and then the eye is rested IN l.e ndH me-;
atmosphere that causes shades to fheFl
gently together.
American influence.
Paris just now is in fever or cons ruo-
tion. While the new note, stimulated by
the Concours de Facades is certainly inc
same excess of carvings. columns and pl-
Iasters. it is not the only new note. Amer
lean comfort has penetrated to Paris. You
can GET an apartment now with an honest
hath room You can even get real pay
window which is the last word OF lhAoNa-
ton. If something does not stop the niaFth
of all this Improvement the nasty htte
q n
day have porches all around them.
| have never felt that imagined drawback
of 50 many tourists, the lack OF privacy
of the Paris fiat. The heavy stone con-
struction of the floors and walls deadens all
sounds except that of dancing to an orcheS-
ira 1t is true that my present abode-like
many extra small fats cut out OF a larger
one-has a thin wall on one side OF one
room. But the only sounds are OF the
street. Hucksters 10 not cry their vegeta-
bles: hand organs and German bands are
unknown; door-bell ringing beggars cannot
keep you wondering who Is there, and the
whrring of the trolley car is not. The
street sounds of Paris are the roll OF cabs,
the piping horns of bicycles and auto
mobiles, the centuries-old calls, half songs
of perambulating artisans and the faint
echo of continual Paris chatter.
A Word for the Concierge.
The dreaded concierge, or janitor, trou-
bles no ones privacy. 1t is true that there
are folk-I know one American-who are
always having troubles with their con-
cierges. Such troubles always have their
secret in the under-tipping of the con-
clerge. 1t is said that he reads your postal
cards. Then do not use postal cards. Who
can protect you so well against the wicked
outside world as a good concierge? You
are at home or not al home to visitors, as
you instruct him. He stands between you
and the bill collector His tone of confi-
dence decides delivery clerks to leave your
purchases to be paid for later. Many con-
cierges gossip. II it is your pleasure to lis
ten to the talk of servants you may hear
that such a ladyS cousin comes to see her
daily, or that the baron's tailor wanted
cash on delivery, but, fresh from visit to
my native land, my "reminiscences of neigh
borly rubber-necking cause me to look on
such tndiscretiOns mere trifies
The small Paris flats Of say three bed
rooms. have the salon, or Darlor. looking on
the street: there will be one handsome,
foomy bed room also on the street: the
large and highly decorated dining room is
on the court and comparatively dark while
of the two other bed rooms there is little
TO be said except that they are bed rooms.
The kitchen. with its tiled brick floor its
largo porcelain-lined sink. its imposing gas
range, furnished free if you use the gas
and with battery Of cleaning copper sauce
pans, without which there can be no French
cooking, makes one of the prettiest rooms
of the apartment The sweeping is all on
one floor. There are no stairs. The rugs
are beaten out the courtyard windows early
in the morning. Household supplies must
also come up in the morning and by the
back stairway. Coal is logged up from the
cellar by the bushel bagful. Somehow the
distressing debris of small housekeeping at
home does not collect in the Partisan fat
There Is no room for trash.
Elevators and Bath Rooms
The two great improvements of the up-to-
date Paris apartment house are the ele-
vator and the bath room. In the best Paris
houses built more than fifteen years ago
the vast majority in the most fashionable
districts-the delicate little marquise and
the fragile little baronne have to climb two
flights, or three or four. The elevator has
come late to Paris. The type of five years
and more ago is that of the time-killing
hydraulic balance, dragging up great steel
column to support it. Happily the swift
moving new compressed-ar lifts leave
nothing to be desired. No elevator boy at
tends them. You step in, shut the door
and press two buttons-one to fix the stop
ping place. and one to start the lift. At the
third floor, or fourth, or fifth, as you have
pressed the button, the lift stops of its own