Chilean interior designer Micky Hurley and his wife, Malu, had long talked about finding a place in Europe—in particular, in Paris. Micky would travel there often to source antiques and art for his clients, and sometimes Malu would join him with the kids—they have five, ranging in ages from 18 months to 16. Malu knows the city well, having spent childhood summers at her grandparents’ home on the Avenue Foch. “And I adore everything about Paris,” says Micky. “The sky, the colors, the museums, the architecture, the parks, the beauty—all of it.”
At a dinner party one night, the couple mentioned their interest in finding a pied-à-terre in the city. A friend knew of a regal two-bedroom flat in a glorious 17th-century city mansion on the Right Bank. As soon as the Hurleys saw it, they knew they had found their Paris home. With soaring ceilings, Versailles-style oak parquet, and handsome boiserie, the apartment echoes the elegance of France’s most revered châteaux. Rightly so, Malu explains, because it was designed by Antoine Le Pautre, house architect to the Duc d’Orléans, and built in 1655. Today, it is surrounded by a clutch of Asian restaurants, a theater, a hardware store—typical Paris quartier bustle. Yet, step through the heavy doors into the cobblestone courtyard, “and you find this jewel,” says Malu, noting the garden designed by renowned landscape architect Louis Benech. “You are in your own little utopia.”
Micky Hurley House Tour
The hôtel particulier had been overhauled 20 years ago by designers Joseph Achkar and Michel Charrière—the duo now overseeing the restoration of the Hôtel de la Marine on the Place de la Concorde. “They have an incomparable attention to detail,” Micky says. And it even had a lived-in feeling about it that he found enchanting. “Perhaps it was the age of the building, but the smell of the living room brought me back to my great-grandmother’s home in Santiago, where I grew up. It took me right back to my childhood,” he says.
The designer’s upbringing, in fact, was imbued with refined taste. His grandfather was a respected art and antiques dealer who went on buying trips to Spain and Buenos Aires. On occasion, Micky tagged along and soon began picking up pieces himself. He eventually moved into interior design, filling homes with those discoveries. “Micky believes the warmth and depth that antiques can give a space is immeasurable—they make it feel lived-in and personal,” Malu says. “They are pieces you want to pass on.”
Because Micky and Malu had envisioned their Paris nest for years, furnishing it went very quickly. Some pieces they acquired specifically for the flat—like their Venetian bed, which came from Achkar and Charrière, and the children’s twin beds, which they bought at the Drouot auction house. (They had additional trundle beds made, so everyone has a place to sleep.) But most everything else was already in hand. “Each object we brought in has a sense of importance, no matter how big or small,” Micky says, noting a collection of 12 marble Caesar intaglios gracing the living room walls, an oil painting of one of his ancestors, and a pair of 17th-century stamped fauteuils that belonged to Greta Garbo. (She had them in her Sutton Place apartment with the same fabric.) “Everything in this apartment brings its own magic and appears to have lived here always, all together.”
The Hurleys’ cohort concurs. “We recently hosted a cocktail party with the Chilean ambassador and friends from New York,” Malu recalls. “They said, ‘It looks like you have lived here your whole life.’ ”
Gallery of Antiquities
Featured in our January/February 2020 issue. Interior Design by Micky Hurley; Architecture by Achkar And Charrière; Photography by Dylan Thomas; Styling by Sara Mathers
