SHANGHAI NIGHTS, PARIS DAYS

Step into Shanghai power couple Sandrine Zerbib and Simon Wang’s new home in Paris’s stylish 6th arrondissement, revamped by Hong Kong designer Daniel Fintzi

-  Andrea Lo

When Sandrine Zerbib and Simon Wang decided to relocate to Europe from Shanghai, they visited some 70 houses and apartments in search of their dream home—and without success.

That was until they saw photos of this magnificent apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris’s 6th arrondissement, inside an hôtel particulier—a grand townhouse—that dates back to 1668.

“We immediately wanted to visit it, as we felt that this was going to be ‘the one’,” says Zerbib, who is the founder of the brand management and digital agency Full Jet. A French native, she spent 28 years in mainland China— mainly in Shanghai—and between the 1990s and 2007 was the president of Adidas Greater China. “And it was love at first sight,” adds Wang, who is a lawyer, originally from the Chinese province of Hebei.

The history behind the 2,583 sq ft, two-bedroom, three-bathroom home, which originally had two bathrooms, was a draw. The storied hôtel particulier stands out among the Haussmanian architecture that dominates Saint-Germain-des-Prés—an area that in the 19th and 20th centuries was a hub for the literati of Paris—as well as much of the rest of the city. Once home to the 19th-century French politician and nobleman Marquis de Ploeuc, the building has been in the current owners’ family for generations—Zerbib and Wang are now the only people outside that family who reside in the building. The apartment is located on the second floor, which was historically considered the most prestigious part of the hôtel particulier—it allows residents to be above street level without having to climb up too many flights of stairs.