Creatives are energizing this oft-overlooked district in the city’s 16th Arrondissement with pilgrimage-worthy addresses
In May, tennis fans in Panama hats converge on Roland Garros Stadium for the French Open. Just a forehand shot away from the red clay courts, Auteuil is an authentic pocket of Paris that’s far from the tourist throngs—and the stereotypes sometimes saddled on it by east-leaning Parisians. (Non, the 16th arrondissement is not the sleepy and bourgeois hinterlands.) Incorporated into the city in 1860, this former hamlet was the haunt of Molière and the literati, and later a hotbed of Art Nouveau residences by architect Hector Guimard (the creator of Paris’s iconic Métro entrances). Today’s avant-gardistes are opening new addresses along rue Jean de La Fontaine, Auteuil’s main thoroughfare, that are helping reinvigorate the village while keeping its history and tradition close.