A 538-Square-Foot Paris Pied-à-Terre Built Around a 17th-Century Cabinet

A 538-square-foot apartment on Place Dauphine now functions as a cabinet of curiosities, thanks to AD100 interior designer Jessica Helgerson. The commission came from a newly married American couple who wed in Paris and promised each other a home on the very square where they took their wedding photos.

"The husband said to the wife 'You can pick any apartment as long as it's on Place Dauphine,'" Helgerson recounts. Shortly after that vow, the couple found the one-bedroom apartment on the square and made it their pied-à-terre.

Helgerson, who holds dual citizenship and maintains clients and offices in both Paris and Portland, Oregon, is known for balanced interiors across a wide range of styles. She avoids a signature look. For her, the fun is in invention, not repetition.

What did the clients ask for?

"When they came to us, they said they wanted the feeling of a cabinet of curiosities," says Helgerson. The brief suited the small footprint. "My mind went straight to two things," she says. "The robin's-egg blue glass wall in the Natural History Museum in Manhattan and the famous store Deyrolles which is in that same color. It's a great color for displaying things."

That blue recurs throughout the apartment:

• the tablecloth covering the dining table
• the surface of the egg-shaped coffee table
• the sofa upholstery
• the bedroom walls

How does a 17th-century cabinet organize the space?

Helgerson anchored the dining and living room with a large German Renaissance cabinet from the 17th century. The piece matches the apartment's era, and its measurements fit the largest wall exactly. All of the home's small treasures gather on its green fabric-covered shelves, leaving other surfaces clear and letting the compact home breathe.

The bedroom serves only sleep and storage — it is too petite for anything else. Helgerson worked within those constraints without sacrificing visual balance, converting a defunct chimney flue into a bed niche that looks as if it started out life that way.

In the pistachio-hued kitchen, a wood cabinet serves as a pantry. "The leaded glass windows in the kitchen filter out the unattractive view to an elevator shaft," says Helgerson. "The design of crosses, interjected with red circles, came from the railing outside of the building." The entry window and the raku ceramic coffee table in the living room draw on the same motif.

Why does the small home feel larger than its footprint?

The apartment holds a lot for a home for two — many fine antiques among them — yet it feels unified, easy to navigate, and nowhere near cramped. Helgerson credits restraint. "I like a pretty limited material palette. It helps the house feel like itself," she says.

The result is a personal home for two people who wanted fantasy without losing function, executed deftly in a space many designers would find challenging. Helgerson's range makes the outcome less surprising. "I don't have my own design aesthetic," she says. "The aesthetic is to listen to the place, where I am working, the materials of the place, and what feels right." Ask her for a cabinet of curiosities, and you get exactly that — in exactly the right color.