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Eiffel Tower in My Dreams? Or a Reality?

Volume XV, Issue 35

Billions of people dream of seeing the Eiffel Tower in person and hundreds of millions have actually gone to the top — in fact, about 7 million per year with 250 million total counted as of 2010. Almost 80% of the visitors are foreign and after the French with 20%, Americans make up the next largest group with about 11%.

 Universal Exposition in Paris

Universal Exposition Paris, France

Gustave EiffelGustave Eiffel

location location location

The apartment's balcony viewThe apartment’s balcony view

View from the apartment's terraceView from the apartment’s terrace

The apartment's dining room viewThe apartment’s dining room view

Why “La Grande Dame” is the lady in just about everyone’s dream can be answered differently by each one of the many millions, but we all know that the tower, a symbol built for the 1889 Universal Exhibition, risked being dismantled in 1909 if it weren’t for it’s value as a communications tower, and not for its good looks.

It wasn’t always in everyone’s dream, either. In 1887 there were protests to prevent it from being built at all. It was called all sorts of violent blasphemies by important people including: “this truly tragic street lamp” (Léon Bloy); “this belfry skeleton” (Paul Verlaine); “this mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed” (François Coppée); “this high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, this giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney” (Maupassant) and “a half-built factory pipe, a carcass waiting to be fleshed out with freestone or brick, a funnel-shaped grill, a hole-riddled suppository” (Joris-Karl Huysmans).

Here’s an extract from the “Protest against the Tower of Monsieur Eiffel,” published in the newspaper Le Temps, addressed to the World’s Fair’s director of works, Monsieur Alphand and signed by several big names from the world of literature and the arts: Charles Gounod, Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas junior, François Coppée, Leconte de Lisle, Sully Prudhomme, William Bouguereau, Ernest Meissonier, Victorien Sardou, Charles Garnier and others:

“We come, we writers, painters, sculptors, architects, lovers of the beauty of Paris which was until now intact, to protest with all our strength and all our indignation, in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower which popular ill-feeling, so often an arbiter of good sense and justice, has already christened the Tower of Babel. Is the City of Paris any longer to associate itself with the baroque and mercantile fancies of a builder of machines, thereby making itself irreparably ugly and bringing dishonor?”

Eiffel, in response to the protests, issued this comment in an interview in the newspaper Le Temps of February 14, 1887:

“For my part I believe that the Tower will possess its own beauty. Are we to believe that because one is an engineer, one is not preoccupied by beauty in one’s constructions, or that one does not seek to create elegance as well as solidity and durability? Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony? Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument’s four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole. Likewise the many empty spaces built into the very elements of construction will clearly display the constant concern not to submit any unnecessary surfaces to the violent action of hurricanes, which could threaten the stability of the edifice. Moreover there is an attraction in the colossal, and a singular delight to which ordinary theories of art are scarcely applicable.”

Once it was built, the opinion changed. It was warmly greeted by two million visitors during the fair itself. And the rest is history. Gustave Eiffel was right. Now, having a view of the Eiffel Tower from your window is a dream come true and remains one of the best assets any property can have. Properties that can boast of even a tiny glimpse carry high premiums.

How many thousands of Paris apartments can claim a glimpse is unknown, but I visited one such apartment this week, with an exceptional view of the iron lady. An American living and working in Paris renting an apartment in a building just opposite the tower was offered the property for purchase, with the tenant having first right of refusal. The one-bedroom penthouse, with two balconies, a terrace on the back facing north and a huge private rooftop terrace, is an apartment that we could easily call “a jewel” — and even more than that — “a diamond.”

“Should I buy it, she asked?”

“Mais oui!” is the answer…almost at any price. And yes, it comes at a price, but worth it. Let us not forget the golden rule in real estate: “Location, location, location.” If a view of the Eiffel Tower is in hundreds of millions of dreams, then why not go for the gold? Properties like this sell and rent in a Paris minute.

See the Eiffel Tower Infographic.

Want to make your dream come true to have an Eiffel Tower view? Let us help you find it! The search may not be easy, but it is sure to be fun and rewarding!

A bientôt,

Adrian Leeds - Paris, France

Adrian Leeds
Adrian Leeds Group

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P.S. The Adrian Leeds Group is looking for someone who can assist our clients in the installation of utilities in their new properties: managing the electricity, gas and water contracts, as well as subscribing to one of the Internet/TV/Phone services on their behalf, with final installation of the service in the property. We will pay a fair hourly rate to someone with an Auto-Entrepreneur status. If you are that person, contact us at <

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