Montecristo - Inside Jackie Kai Ellis’s Paris Apartment
Words by Alexandra Sehmer - Photos by Joann Pai
Feb 27, 2019
Something special.
Jackie Kai Ellis greets me at the door of her second floor Parisian home wearing a cozy ankle-length grey sweater dress, her signature curls pulled up, halo-like, around her head. Located in the trendy 10th arrondissement and not far from the Canal Saint-Martin, the apartment is surprisingly spacious. But I soon learn that what might seem like a stroke of luck—finding a decent-sized flat in a city known for its Polly-Pocket offerings—is actually the product of Kai Ellis’s innate vision, her ability to spot opportunity and go for it.
Paris has always felt like home for Vancouver-born Kai Ellis: She closed her successful design company in order to master the art of French patisserie at the city’s Ecole Gastronomique Bellouet Conseil, before returning to Vancouver in 2012 to open Beaucoup Bakery & Café (since sold to sister and brother duo Betty and Jacky Hung). Her recently released memoir, The Measure of My Powers, outlines the at-times tortuous journey she’s been on to get to where she is at today. Leaving the comfort of what you know to pursue opportunities that are equal parts compelling and terrifying is a recurring theme. Buying an apartment in Paris appears to fit the trend.
The previous owner was an 85-year-old hoarder who had piled up mountains of papers and trinkets. Still, Kai Ellis was able to pick out attractive herringbone wood floors and original features. “When I first walked in here, I realized that the floors were pretty much untouched because the owner had so much stuff covering them,” she says, “and I could see mouldings, fireplaces … All the architectural details were there and I knew it was a space I could work with.”
She snapped it up.
A contractor was hired to take down walls and create a single open space, revealing an original (and working) marble fireplace. A rose-coloured velvet sofa from La Redoute—a no-frills French department store—now takes pride of place beneath an airy brass light fixture from Voltex, with a pink-quartz-topped brass coffee table and Turkish rug completing the minimalist tableau. Chairs and a DIY dining table—a piece of glass perched atop four painted pieces of wood from a local hardware store—sit opposite, a temporary solution while Kai Ellis finds pieces worth investment. She’s in no rush.