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When Megan Greer finally met Côme Ménage, it felt like their relationship was meant to be. Both have studied architecture and urban design internationally, and when Ms Grehl came to Shanghai in 2009 to work at Neri&Hu Design she heard stories about Mr Ménage who had just left.
“We missed a month,” said Ms. Greer, 37, who now runs her own interior design studio. “Our friends said, ‘Oh, this is too bad. You just missed Côme. He went to New York and you guys will get along just fine.'”
Ms. Greer didn’t think much of it at the time, but five years later, after she moved to New York, she and Mr. Menacki started following each other on Instagram. When she posted a photo of the upper-class apartment she was renting in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Mr. Menacki contacted her. It turned out they were next-door neighbors.
They became good friends, later a couple, and married in 2017. Eventually, they moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where they now live with children Eve, 5, and Ren, 1.
But when Ms. Greer married Mr. Menage, she got more than a husband and a family, she also got a home in the center of Paris.
Mr. Menage, 39, grew up in France and lived a nomadic life for years. But when he moved to New York, he decided to establish himself in Paris. “I rent an apartment that I can move in and out of, and some of my family members can use sometimes,” said Mr. Menage, the architect who founded Re-AD, which has operations in the US and France.
The apartment in the 9th arrondissement was rented out, and “it was a deal,” he said, “because the whole building had to be renovated.” Initially, he paid about 3,500 euros (about $3,900) a month, but the rent has since risen to about 4,000 euros (about $4,500).
Before meeting Ms. Greer, Mr. Menarche made some fundamental changes. “It’s a typical Parisian Haussmann apartment with a grand salon,” he said, with ornate 19th-century details and a rear corridor leading to a narrow kitchen and bathroom. To make the rear space feel larger, Mr. Menacki knocked down a wall from the old kitchen, hiding the rear stairwell and making room for a powder room and larger bathroom.
“It’s actually quite simple,” he said. “But once Meghan came into my life, I brought her here and she was inspired and it inspired me to do more.”
Ms. Greer also met Odile Vilain, Mr. Menacki’s mother, a massage therapist who sometimes invites clients to the apartment, and the two hit it off. Before long, the family plans a major renovation of the apartment, mixing contemporary art and design, Parisian flea market finds and Asian-inspired elements in a nod to Ms. Greer’s background (her mother is Taiwanese and she grew up in Asia).
In the living room or grand salon, they kept the original plaster details but gave the room an eclectic look by adorning modern furniture, including a vintage Artichoke chandelier by Poul Henningsen, a bulbous Culbuto chair by Marc Held, and a graffiti-style painting by an artist friend named Chanoir.
In the dining room, they took a bolder approach, painting the original paneled walls black and gold and letting the gold fade towards the top, “to draw the eye to the ceiling,” Ms. Greer said, “because it’s just so beautiful.”
Inspired by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, they ordered custom wallpaper featuring patterns of waves and figures from the artist’s work; the graphic pattern now covers some of the kitchen walls. They then installed IKEA cabinets, wood countertops and backsplashes, Gaggenau appliances and painted tablecloths depicting fish and repurposed them as wall-mounted art.
They gave the bedroom a fresh treatment with simple white drapes and a Merci pendant light with a fabric shade, then transformed the second bedroom into Ms Vilain’s spa, placing a Philippe Starck console over a miniature garden with dried moss, grass and flowers.
The result: a 1,800-square-foot apartment where every room evokes a special feeling.
“It’s good to have different concepts for different rooms,” Mr Ménage said. “As you find more pieces, you’re not tied down trying to be coherent in all the spaces.”
“It allows for more experimentation and gives us more freedom” to go flea market shopping, he added.
Mr. Ménage estimates they spent about €120,000 (or $134,000) updating the apartment. They inquired about buying, but the owners weren’t interested, so they’ll keep renting out for the foreseeable future.
“The idea is to own it for the long term,” Mr Menacki said. Because of this, investing in updates “just makes sense, in order to keep everyone comfortable.”
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