A Perfume Magnate Renovates a House With a Murky Past Outside Paris

Half an hour from Paris, Marc Chaya’s house in Chailly-en-Bière is a world away. Its clean white curves and corners seem to float in a flat wooded park on the edge of the vast Fontainebleau forest. It gleams placidly, a world away, too, from the plowed-over fields down the road, where a few remnant heads of lettuce lie forlornly, like guillotined kings. It also bears no resemblance whatsoever to its neighbors, French McMansions of the faux-Norman style.