The most celebrated shared house in art history stands in the 7th arrondissement, and it lights the way for today's flatshare apartment: from 1905, the Hôtel Biron, awaiting sale, was let room by room to artists — Cocteau, Matisse, Isadora Duncan, Rilke — and Rodin took four rooms there in 1908 on his poet-secretary's advice. The sculptor ended up occupying the whole mansion, then turning it into a museum; the principle, though, stayed in the district: the 7th's great addresses live better with several under the roof.
They charge for it too: the 7th's flatshare apartment lodges at the top of the whole-unit market — expect €2,700 and up per month, before charges, for three real bedrooms, a dome view optional. Division softens the bill, and the neighbours offer two escapes: the 8th arrondissement for the right bank of offices and parks, the 16th for the same volumes a few hundred euros lighter.
You hold a family apartment between Sèvres-Babylone and the École Militaire? A lease that allows shared occupancy extends its vocation rather than betraying it: those enfilade plans were designed for numbers, and a group of professionals inhabits them better than a couple lost in a hundred and forty square metres. State the complete rent, the bedroom distribution and the floor — every flatmate eyeing the 7th reads those three lines first, the rest is a matter of viewing.
Frequently asked questions
What survives of the Biron spirit for a group today?
The essential part: the idea that a great address can be shared without being diminished. The artists of 1908 each rented their wing and crossed paths in the garden; a flatshare apartment in the 7th reproduces that dosage — fully private bedrooms, generous common rooms, and an address none could have afforded alone.
Isn't the 7th too quiet for group life?
It is quiet, certainly — ministries, embassies, streets that dim early. That is exactly what its groups come for: you host at home rather than at the bar, and rue Cler or the Saxe-Breteuil market covers the week's provisioning without a metro ride. Party crowds will pick another arrondissement, with no regrets on either side of the deal.
What does each person pay in the Invalides-Tower-Sèvres triangle?
Split three or four ways, the share stays at the level of a local studio — for three times the lived surface. The market's benchmark fits one line: a LocService room at €744 monthly, charges within the billed total — each flatmate's share of a big 7th-arrondissement home sits above it, the address and the volumes explain the gap.
Parquet, mouldings, high ceilings: are these old homes costly to run?
They can be: tall ceilings and period windows need heating. Ask for the energy bills of the last two winters and the breakdown of charges — a group that budgets the heating before signing never falls out in February, and a serious landlord hands over those figures without being pressed twice.
Landlord of a grand enfilade plan: how do you present it to groups?
Through the layout rather than the prestige: how many closed bedrooms, which face the courtyard, where common life can unfold without crossing anyone's room. An experienced flatmate reads a floor plan like a contract — hand it over first, and only useful viewings will follow.
