Edith Piaf love nest up for sale
Home bought by the singer to live with boxer Marcel Cerdan goes on market for nearly four million euros
The former Paris home of singer Edith Piaf has gone on sale for €3,800,000.
The luxury flat, situated at 5 rue Gambetta in Boulogne-Billancourt, was originally bought by the singer in 1949 as a place where she and her lover, the boxer Marcel Cerdan, could live together.
Piaf had an affair with the married father of three from the summer of 1948, until his death in a plane crash in October 1949.
Cerdan was on route to visit Piaf, who was performing in New York, when the Air France plane he was travelling on crashed into a mountain while trying to land at a midway-point in Santa Maria.
Piaf, who wrote Hymne à l'amour for Cerdan (and apparently received the words for La Chanson Bleue from him during a séance held in the apartment) sold the flat in 1952.
It was designed by Emilio Terry in the 1930s neoclassical style and Piaf had visions of turning its circular dining-room into a boxing ring where Cerdan could practise.
The interior has been maintained in its original style. The circular dining-room, which leads onto a terrace designed by a well-known landscape gardener of the time, Camille Muller, is still in the original black and white.
There is a period bathroom in pink marble and the lounge has impressive columns and a 5m high ceiling. It also has three bedrooms, five toilets, a sauna, games room and kitchen.
Catherine Delfosse from the estate agents Daniel Féau says there has been interest in the flat – but that it is still on the market.
However, if it is not within your budget, you can see the outside of the flat by taking a tour of 1930s architecture drawn up for tourists by the Paris mairie.
