A year ago, we were taken around Maison Planeix by its owner, the granddaughter of the couple who originally commissioned Le Corbusier – when he was still relatively unknown in 1924 – to design them a house in what was then a largely empty Parisian street in the 13th arrondissement. As the area has grown and developed around them, several generations of the Planeix family have now lived there, and it is the only house designed by Le Corbusier to have remained in the same family. After 89 years, the property, including its two ground-floor and one second-floor artist live/work studios, has come onto the market for the first time.

A characteristically classic Le Corbusier design, it features pilotis, a roof garden, a free plan, horizontal windows, double-height ateliers, and external walkways and staircases. However, as the total cost of the build approached double the initial budget, Antonin Planeix (1895-1949) asked Le Corbusier to add two workshops on the ground floor, thereby filling in the pilotis.

As the house has been privately occupied over the course of its life, it is one of Le Corbusier’s lesser-known works. With only some moderate alterations to the roof terrace to make the second floor into a self-contained flat, the design is largely intact, with original colours and original fitted furniture and fittings. Only the kitchen sink has been raised for a modern fridge to fit underneath.

The original owner was Antonin Planeix, a man interested in modernity, a painter, a self-taught craftsman who produced photographs to transfer onto enamel. Its small photographic portraits were widely used on tombstones. The Planeix house is part of a series of villas built by Le Corbusier in the 1920s in Paris and its environs, which include Atelier Ozenfant, Villas Lipchitz-Miestchaninoff, Villa Savoye and Maison La Roche to name a few.

The house contains a total of five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a large split-level garden and a garage over a total area of 2,938 sq ft in a well-placed area of Paris. It is for sale for $3,064,000 (c. £2,057,000).