WEB-EXCLUSIVE HOME TOUR

Inside Jeanne Damas’s Transportive Paris Aerie

The fashion maven and actor and her art-dealer partner made their first home together feel like a country oasis overlooking the City of Light

By Gay GassmannPhotography by DePasquale+Maffini

July 26, 2024

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When Parisian multihyphenate Jeanne Damas and her partner, art dealer Edouard de Moussac, decided to move in together, their first thought was to find something with a garden. Damas had been living in a top-floor apartment with enviable views, but now she wanted outdoor space. Coming across a listing in the newspaper one day, she recalls, “[It] had a terrace and it looked great in the photos, but we [were not familiar with the neighborhood]. We climbed the stairs when we arrived and fell in love.” The former residents were still at home having breakfast around the kitchen hearth during the visit, and “there was such a warm ambiance.”

Damas, the founder of cult-favorite fashion brand Rouje, has recently added acting to her list of endeavors, starring as Paloma Picasso in the recently released television series Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. She also opened the US’s first Rouje boutique earlier this year, in NYC’s SoHo, and it’s a direct reflection of Damas—imbued with her inimitable style, easy confidence, and distinct twist on vintage-Paris cool. As it turns out, a knack for acclimating to new situations and environs would also suit her own imminent move.

The terrace is used as soon as temperatures rise in the spring, and the couple sets it up with cozy seating and a beautifully set table for meals. The cheerful striped fabric is from Nobilis, chosen for its beachy feel.

“We came to visit without knowing the area, [but] we both fell in love,” says Moussac of their apartment search a few years ago, when Damas was pregnant. The area in question, in the 20th arrondissement, is animated, authentic, and charming. Although the streets are typically bustling, Damas and Moussac’s top-floor abode is quiet and cocoon-like. The pretty, planted rooftop terrace more than makes up for the lack of a garden.

The apartment unfolds over two floors, and one of their primary aims was to lighten everything up. The couple’s architect, Maxime Bousquet, helped them achieve that during a six-month renovation by expanding the opening between the two levels, lightening the wood beams, and replacing all the windows. “For upstairs, we were thinking [of a] country house,” says Damas, “and everything is carpeted up there—fairly classic.”

One enters the apartment and encounters a welcoming counter with stools overlooking the open kitchen—Damas’s favorite part of the home. To the right, Paysage Surréaliste, a 1938 painting by Valentine Hugo, hangs above a Bagdad lamp by Mathieu Matégot from 1954.

Moussac keeps an office elsewhere, but he prefers to work from home most of the time. Collecting and dealing mainly in surrealist pictures—with pieces by Francis Picabia and André Breton—he is always moving pieces around and rehanging paintings. Sometimes clients will come to see works in their home, and in Moussac’s opinion, it is important “to show [them] not in a white cube.” No worries there, as the couple, without the help of an interior decorator, worked hand-in-glove to layer the home with not only artwork, but family heirlooms and treasures from the Paris flea market.

For her part, Damas loves how one encounters the open kitchen when first walking into the residence. “We spend a lot of time here,” she explains of the cozy expanse, adding how the room’s custom table is a popular gathering spot for both kids and adults. Because the couple had come from their own separate places, with their own disparate tastes and belongings, Damas confides, “It was not so obvious—[our] two universes coming together.” But in the end, it all seems to blend beautifully.

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The original wood beams were stripped of their dark paint. The couple also decided to open up the ceiling between the two floors of their duplex, bringing in more light, and they installed a vintage spiral staircase with a lithe profile. The walls are coated in a custom color from Resource, while the existing sycamore floors were cleaned and polished.

The welcoming kitchen has a custom table and benches inspired by Luis Barragán’s Casa Pedregal in Mexico. Damas had been thinking about creating a table like this even before they began the renovation with their architect, Maxime Bousquet, who suggested making the piece and its benches out of maple for its light honey color. The kitchen table is now the center of the apartment and kids and adults often sit around it together. The portrait above the fireplace is Portrait of a Woman by Leonor Fini.

In the main salon is a large, the round wicker coffee table is from the 1970s. The Mah Jong sofas are by Hans Hopfer and the throw pillows wear a fabric from Simrane. The seating was a wedding gift from one set of grandparents and carry sentimental meaning for the family.

Art: Paulina Peavy/Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York and the Estate of Paulina Peavy

The couple found a way to combine their own possessions and artwork. Here, on the left, a 2018 work by Robert Brambora is informally positioned on the floor, with a 1950s drawing by Valentine Hugo on the right.

Art: Robert Brambora/Sans Titre Gallery

Against the wall in the main living area is a wicker chest of drawers they found at the Paris flea market. The painting hanging at the top is by Francis Picabia from 1926 representing the famous 1916 match between the poet-boxer Arthur Cravan and Jack Johnson, the American champion. An “exquisite corpse” drawing sits on the right, made by participants including André Breton, Valentine Hugo, Tristan Tzara, and Greta Knutson-Tzara. In the center, a small painting on wood by Plum Cloutman.

Art: Francis Picabia © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Eugène Leroy © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. André Breton © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

In the back of the main living space is another seating area with a low table by Pierre Jeanneret, which was made in circa-1960 for the Punjab of Chandigarh in India. The painting on the wall is an oil on canvas by Marcello Venusti dating to around 1550. The smaller black-and-white work, an ink and pencil on paper, is by Francis Picabia from around 1922.

In a cozy office area on the main floor is a rope-and-oak desk by Audoux-Minet, French designers from the 1950s. On the wall hangs a large painting by American artist William N. Copley from 1973 and part of a series that was shown in 1974 in New York. Also hanging is a photograph by Man Ray from 1930.

At the top of the stairs hangs a rectangular nude from 1943 by a lesser-known artist, René Gras. Damas says she instantly fell in love with it when she saw it at the Paris flea market.

Hanging above the primary bed, whose cover is from Simrane, is a painting by Gérard Schlosser from 1990. Lauded for his narrative and figurative work, he painted with sand, adding texture and depth.

Also in the primary bedroom is a low-relief panel in sculpted wood representing Jesus Christ, created at the end of the 16th century, which the couple found at an antiques shop.