Yetunde Oshodi and I both live in Paris, yet it is unlikely that we would have ever met if social media did not exist. We corresponded for weeks through Twitter, and then finally met face-to-face at a Tweet-up this summer. (Paris has an active Anglophone blogger and Twitter community—bloggers and tweeps often meet at cafés for a couple of hours of real live chit-chat.) It was at the summer Tweet-up that I learned that Yetunde runs an apartment-rental service and that her French husband runs a cooking school.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Yetunde moved to the northern suburbs of New York City at the age of six. She first visited Paris in 1995, when she says the “art de vivre that is oh, so French, called to me.” She particularly loved the cafés, which she described as being great for art, culture, food and people watching!
Yetunde Oshodi
Photo courtesy of Yetunde Oshodi
Returning to Paris in October 2003 for an internship with Accor Hotels (the corporate owner of Sofitel, Novotel, and Mercure), Yetunde had no idea that she would make the city her permanent home. An offer to work as an assistant in an apartment-rental business would change all that. Between this position and a second one working for a Paris rental agency based in London, she learned the industry inside out (cleaning, administration, meet and greets, troubleshooting . . .) and discovered that this was her dream occupation. In March 2005, she took over the management of her first property and by the end of the year she was in charge of five of them. She decided to call her business Feels Like Home in Paris (FLHP) because this is what she wants her customers to experience when they stay in one of her rentals. She says that “the sense of home needs to reign throughout.”
Now, FLHP rents fifteen apartments, most of which are on Montmartre hill in the 18th arrondissement. Yetunde lives in the 18th arrondissement herself, and is able to draw on her experiences there to communicate a true sense of the neighborhood to her guests. Though she rents a few other apartments outside of Montmartre, they are located nearby. She selects apartments that she would readily stay in herself, and confessed that she has a couple of favorites: Fleur du Petit Thouars, which is a new property in the Marais that she had the opportunity to personally renovate “with some fantastic builders,” and Caulaincourt Classique, on the north side of Montmartre. Fleur du Petit Thouars is graced with so many of her personal touches that it stands at the top of her list, but she feels most at home at Caulaincourt Classique. She says that there is just something about this Montmartre property that “causes you to wish to linger,” and notes that it has had the largest number of longer-term rentals this year.
Yetunde is a hands-on business owner, answering e-mails and greeting her rental clients upon their arrival in Paris. She wants them to see that 1) she is a traveler, as they are, 2) that she truly cares about her business, and 3) that she truly cares about them and wants to meet them. To this end, she started hosting a wine and cheese class on Tuesday evenings so that she can meet those clients whom she is not able to welcome personally to their apartments.
While she enjoys meeting clients, Yetunde says that the back end of the business is far from “fun and games.” Dealing with French bureaucracy and, at times, with apartment owners, can be difficult. Yetunde has developed a network of apartment-rental business owners that she calls “The Rental Divas,” and says that the information they share has proved invaluable for dealing with French business customs. Her French husband also helps her understand some of the bureaucratic rules and formalities that she has to deal with regarding administrative tasks. Despite these challenges, Yetunde says that she is rewarded for her devotion and hard work every time a guest takes a minute to send her a lovely thank you note, or writes up a review on one of the online forums.
Yetunde’s husband, Eric Fraudeau, is a professional chef. He owns the cooking school Cook’n with Class, which is also located in Montmartre. The couple met in the U.S., and Eric followed Yetunde to Paris when she moved here in 2003 for her internship. He opened Cook’n with Class the year that they married. The school offers a generous 50% discount for guests who rent FLHP properties. Cook’n with Class also hosts the wine and cheese class that Yetunde organizes for rental clients. Attendees have the double advantage of getting to learn more about French wine and cheeses and getting to know her and Eric a bit better.
Other perks for Feels Like Home in Paris clients include the welcome books that Yetunde leaves in the apartments and her FLHP blog. Clients refer to the welcome books extensively – they contain four to five pages of food, restaurant, and bar suggestions as well as other useful information. Yetunde created the blog in 2007 to provide basic tips for traveling around the city. More recently, she decided to focus on out-of-the-way places and things that she feels deserve just as much attention as the major highlights of the city. Yetunde and two to three other persons who live in Paris write most of the articles, sharing thoughts and Paris experiences. She is now beginning to collaborate with other bloggers as well.
Traveling & photography are Yetunde’s “two favorite things.” In Paris, her photography is often limited to the photos she has taken for the FLHP Web site or of food. On her travels, she not only experiences new cultures, great food, and wonderful sites, but also takes so many photos that she sometimes wonders how much wall space she would need to be able to display them all! While traveling, she often gets ideas for adding homey touches to her apartments, such as welcome baskets that were inspired by her trips through Thailand.
When asked to compare Paris with New York, Yetunde responded by saying that both cities have a wonderful “pulse” with “cultural opportunities everywhere.” She finds the neighborhoods in New York to be like the arrondissements in Paris, and believes that New Yorkers are more likely to venture into different neighborhoods more than Parisians. She says that while she loves Parisian cafés and finds that it is possible to eat inexpensively here, eating cheaply in Paris does not provide the same feeling as eating cheaply in New York. She returns to New York often.
Finally, I asked Yetunde to tell me what one thing she would say to convince a person who is “on the fence” about visiting Paris to come here. Her reply was the following:
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Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Yetunde moved to the northern suburbs of New York City at the age of six. She first visited Paris in 1995, when she says the “art de vivre that is oh, so French, called to me.” She particularly loved the cafés, which she described as being great for art, culture, food and people watching!
Photo courtesy of Yetunde Oshodi
Returning to Paris in October 2003 for an internship with Accor Hotels (the corporate owner of Sofitel, Novotel, and Mercure), Yetunde had no idea that she would make the city her permanent home. An offer to work as an assistant in an apartment-rental business would change all that. Between this position and a second one working for a Paris rental agency based in London, she learned the industry inside out (cleaning, administration, meet and greets, troubleshooting . . .) and discovered that this was her dream occupation. In March 2005, she took over the management of her first property and by the end of the year she was in charge of five of them. She decided to call her business Feels Like Home in Paris (FLHP) because this is what she wants her customers to experience when they stay in one of her rentals. She says that “the sense of home needs to reign throughout.”
Now, FLHP rents fifteen apartments, most of which are on Montmartre hill in the 18th arrondissement. Yetunde lives in the 18th arrondissement herself, and is able to draw on her experiences there to communicate a true sense of the neighborhood to her guests. Though she rents a few other apartments outside of Montmartre, they are located nearby. She selects apartments that she would readily stay in herself, and confessed that she has a couple of favorites: Fleur du Petit Thouars, which is a new property in the Marais that she had the opportunity to personally renovate “with some fantastic builders,” and Caulaincourt Classique, on the north side of Montmartre. Fleur du Petit Thouars is graced with so many of her personal touches that it stands at the top of her list, but she feels most at home at Caulaincourt Classique. She says that there is just something about this Montmartre property that “causes you to wish to linger,” and notes that it has had the largest number of longer-term rentals this year.
Yetunde is a hands-on business owner, answering e-mails and greeting her rental clients upon their arrival in Paris. She wants them to see that 1) she is a traveler, as they are, 2) that she truly cares about her business, and 3) that she truly cares about them and wants to meet them. To this end, she started hosting a wine and cheese class on Tuesday evenings so that she can meet those clients whom she is not able to welcome personally to their apartments.
While she enjoys meeting clients, Yetunde says that the back end of the business is far from “fun and games.” Dealing with French bureaucracy and, at times, with apartment owners, can be difficult. Yetunde has developed a network of apartment-rental business owners that she calls “The Rental Divas,” and says that the information they share has proved invaluable for dealing with French business customs. Her French husband also helps her understand some of the bureaucratic rules and formalities that she has to deal with regarding administrative tasks. Despite these challenges, Yetunde says that she is rewarded for her devotion and hard work every time a guest takes a minute to send her a lovely thank you note, or writes up a review on one of the online forums.
Yetunde’s husband, Eric Fraudeau, is a professional chef. He owns the cooking school Cook’n with Class, which is also located in Montmartre. The couple met in the U.S., and Eric followed Yetunde to Paris when she moved here in 2003 for her internship. He opened Cook’n with Class the year that they married. The school offers a generous 50% discount for guests who rent FLHP properties. Cook’n with Class also hosts the wine and cheese class that Yetunde organizes for rental clients. Attendees have the double advantage of getting to learn more about French wine and cheeses and getting to know her and Eric a bit better.
Other perks for Feels Like Home in Paris clients include the welcome books that Yetunde leaves in the apartments and her FLHP blog. Clients refer to the welcome books extensively – they contain four to five pages of food, restaurant, and bar suggestions as well as other useful information. Yetunde created the blog in 2007 to provide basic tips for traveling around the city. More recently, she decided to focus on out-of-the-way places and things that she feels deserve just as much attention as the major highlights of the city. Yetunde and two to three other persons who live in Paris write most of the articles, sharing thoughts and Paris experiences. She is now beginning to collaborate with other bloggers as well.
Traveling & photography are Yetunde’s “two favorite things.” In Paris, her photography is often limited to the photos she has taken for the FLHP Web site or of food. On her travels, she not only experiences new cultures, great food, and wonderful sites, but also takes so many photos that she sometimes wonders how much wall space she would need to be able to display them all! While traveling, she often gets ideas for adding homey touches to her apartments, such as welcome baskets that were inspired by her trips through Thailand.
When asked to compare Paris with New York, Yetunde responded by saying that both cities have a wonderful “pulse” with “cultural opportunities everywhere.” She finds the neighborhoods in New York to be like the arrondissements in Paris, and believes that New Yorkers are more likely to venture into different neighborhoods more than Parisians. She says that while she loves Parisian cafés and finds that it is possible to eat inexpensively here, eating cheaply in Paris does not provide the same feeling as eating cheaply in New York. She returns to New York often.
Finally, I asked Yetunde to tell me what one thing she would say to convince a person who is “on the fence” about visiting Paris to come here. Her reply was the following:
Paris has something for everyone, be it cultural with the many large and small museums; to food and drink at the many cafes, brasseries, and restaurants; to parks for picnicking, markets for great food finds, and more boulangeries that you could possibly imagine! You have to visit Paris at least once, but once you do, you will very likely come again and again.
Entrée to Black Paris!™ is a Discover Paris! blog.
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2 comments:
Thank you for the lovely profile Monique. You've captured me very well.
It was entirely my pleasure!
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