Knowing how to reinvent your life is a gift you may or may not have, like a perfect pitch or a green thumb. Beneath her soft, somewhat reserved exterior, Sandie Roy Saul clearly has this talent. After twenty-four years at the head of her own press agency specialized in fashion and the art of living, she felt, at the dawn of fifty, that another challenge was waiting for her somewhere. She then lets instinct and reason take over. Also an opportunity.
It all started with the relocation of her offices, when she left the Place des Victoires neighborhood in Paris to put her boxes and computers in the former site of the newspaper. dawn, at 142, rue Montmartre. A mythical place, very populated, just the way she likes it. “I think my office was at Jean Jaurès . . .” she slides, amused. The lease is precarious and, after two years, he has yet to pack up.
This time, Sandie Roy Saul unearths a Haussmann-style apartment of 130 square meters, literally illustrating the expression “in its own juice”, in a quiet cul-de-sac on 9.e district of Paris. “From the first visit, I loved this place, its setting, its details… And I was sensitive to the trace left by the owner, who lived there for a very long time, until her death at 103 years old. » She bought the property and began major work to be able to set up her press office there.
Seeking at all costs to preserve the soul of the place, she kept the circular spaces, the parquet in good condition, the moldings, the small recessed kitchen, and only knocked down one wall to enlarge the living room. The whole is renovated with materials that adhere to the original era, such as these Winckelmans porcelain sandstone tiles, typical of Haussmannian buildings, placed on the bathroom floor. The outlines of a gallery apartment slowly appear in her head, along with the idea of re-conversion… And, in January 2023, the entrepreneur is forced to close his communications agency. “A Little Grief”, she confides modestly.
In the meantime, she decorated the place, giving free rein to her passion for China. Searching for vintage furniture and objects found everywhere, from garage sales to online auctions, through commercial unboxings, the Leboncoin platform, Emmaüs or junk left on the street. If she has always been frugal, from the age of exactly 12, Sandie Roy Saul in no way owes it to the influence of a family keen on antiques. She grew up in a modest environment, with grandparents who served her snacks “in a Formica kitchen”, in Coye-la-Forêt, near Chantilly.
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