The Red Rooms of Avenue Foch – How Paris Became Epstein’s Quiet European Fortress
PARIS – 10 March 2026
Walk down Avenue Foch today and number 22 looks like any other grand Haussmannian hôtel particulier: pale stone, wrought-iron balconies, discreet security cameras. Nothing betrays what the building once contained.
Inside, according to survivor statements, former staff interviews and newly declassified documents, the walls were painted blood red. Nude portraits—some life-size, some suggestive—hung in nearly every room. A soundproofed lower level held massage tables equipped with restraints. Epstein called it his “Paris retreat.” Victims called it another prison.
The house was acquired in 1998 through a Luxembourg trust and renovated extensively in the early 2000s. Epstein visited more than 170 times between 1995 and 2018, often staying for weeks. Flight logs show young women—many later identified as victims—travelling with him to Paris. Several say they were brought directly from Charles de Gaulle airport to Avenue Foch, where Ghislaine Maxwell would greet them, show them to a bedroom, and explain the “rules of the house.”
The red decor was not accidental. One survivor recalls Epstein saying the colour “energised” him and made everything “feel more alive.” Another remembers Maxwell laughing that “red hides blood better than white.” Whether those lines were jokes or boasts, the symbolism is inescapable.
Paris was never the loud part of the Epstein story. Little St. James had the temple, the airstrip, the grotesque excess that photographs could capture. Avenue Foch offered discretion: central yet private, close to the best restaurants and embassies, invisible to the press. French privacy laws and elite connections made it safer than Florida or New Mexico. Maxwell’s family ties—her father Robert Maxwell had deep roots in French business and political circles—provided additional cover.
The mansion was not merely a residence. It was a command centre. Victims describe being told to wait in the red rooms while Epstein met French investors, politicians and cultural figures upstairs. Some say they were instructed to “entertain” guests. Others recall being photographed in the house for what Epstein called his “private collection.”
French authorities opened a preliminary inquiry in 2019 but closed it in 2023, citing insufficient evidence of crimes committed on French territory. The Avenue Foch property was sold in 2022 for €8.7 million. The current owner is unknown.
The latest document releases have changed the calculus. Descriptions of the interior, travel records, and survivor statements now place Paris at the heart of Epstein’s European operations. Yet no French national has been charged, and no French police have returned to the building.
The silence is what lingers most. Paris—the city of light—kept Epstein’s darkest rooms in shadow for decades. The red walls have been repainted. The portraits are gone. The massage tables have been removed.
But memory is not so easily renovated.
For every survivor who walked through that front door, the house on Avenue Foch will always be red.
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