Maison de Nicolas Flamel, Paris

Maison de Nicolas Flamel is a stone house whose façade carries an unusually personal story. An inscription across the front dates its completion to 1407, making it Paris’s oldest house with a firmly established date. Flamel had the building made after his wife Pernelle died: shops occupied the ground floor, while rooms above sheltered poor residents in return for prayers for the couple.

The façade now shows four levels, and changes made for the 1900 World’s Fair removed the large gable that once gave the house its nickname. Focus on the carved door surrounds: musicians appear as angels around the central entrance, and Flamel’s initials are cut into two jambs. The frieze’s message is devout rather than alchemical, asking resident labourers to pray for dead sinners. Later writers attached alchemy to Flamel’s wealth, but that story has no supporting evidence.