As it turns out, life as a child of the Air Force can bring about positive outcomes.
Just ask Madelyn Byrne, founder of Paris Perfect, the purveyor of very fine apartments.
“My dad was an Air Force officer and a fighter pilot, and we moved every 12, 18 and 36 months,” she says. “We were on the coast mostly in California, and always worried about Russia launching missiles.”
Then came duty on a radar base in Naples, Italy. “We ended up growing up in places in the middle of nowhere, and it was sink or swim – how to find furniture and pay the bills,” she says. “And my mother insisted on us driving everywhere in Europe and camping.”
So by the time she began renting her first Paris apartment, Madelyn had empathy for her clientele. “It was about how to make it easier in strange city, where you don’t speak the language and you need to know how find bread,” she says.
Now she and her sisters are running Paris Perfect and its subset, Italy Perfect. They’re renting out 300 apartments in Rome, Florence, Venice, Tuscany, Amalfi and London. And they’re warming up to Spain and Provence.
Quality is a touchstone. “What makes us different is that we don’t take up ala carte properties,” she says. “We personally inspect and help someone buy a property and do the remodel.”
Nowhere is that more self-evident than the little studio they call Saumur, on rue Cler in the seventh arrondissment in Paris. Compact and expansive at once, it’s perfect for two – and centrally located to boot.
It’s also a shining example of Paris Perfect’s penchant for attention to detail. “You hit the nail on the head,” she told me. “The question is: ‘Is it Madelyn-proof?’”
It’s that attitude that earns Paris Perfect a near-40-percent return rate. “It’s a trusted brand that people know and like and want to come back to,” she says. “They find the right property and love it.”
Besides, it’s all user-friendly: You come to Paris. You’re welcomed. You feel at home. Instructions are clear. If you don’t understand the coffee pot, someone will show up and explain it.
And when it’s time to go, you can’t wait to come back.
What’s not to love?
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