A Roofer’s View

From the Top of Paris: The Galeries Lafayette Rooftop

There are some places you visit for the shopping, and then there are places you visit because, once you step inside, you simply have to stop and look up. Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann is both. It is one of the most famous department stores in the world, tucked along Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement, and while people come from everywhere to browse its floors, the real treasures for us were overhead and all around.

Here is a little secret worth knowing before you go: you can take the elevators up to the rooftop terrace, order a drink, and simply enjoy the view. It is one of the few panoramic rooftops in Paris that is completely free — no ticket, no reservation, just walk in and go up. And for anyone who spends their life thinking about roofs the way we do, it turned out to be one of the most memorable stops of the whole trip.

Roof Top View

Look Up: The Dome That Stops You in Your Tracks

Before you ever reach the roof, the inside of the store gives you a moment you will not forget. Just look at this photo.

Interior stained-glass dome

That is the Coupole, the great Art Nouveau glass and steel dome that has crowned the store since 1912. It rises about 43 meters above the sales floor, built as a collaboration between architect Ferdinand Chanut, who designed its soaring geometry, master glassworker Jacques Grüber, who created the stained glass, and Louis Majorelle, who fashioned the beautiful ironwork on the balconies. The colored glass forms an enormous flower of ten luminous petals, spread across roughly a thousand square meters, and the light it throws down into the store shifts hour by hour — cool blue-grey in the morning, warm amber in the afternoon.

It has quite a story, too. During the Second World War the entire dome was carefully taken apart and hidden away so falling bombs would not shower shoppers with broken glass. Some of the numbered panels were never found, and to this day a few sections are plain white where the originals were lost. More than a century later, it still takes your breath away — and it is a wonderful reminder that great craftsmanship, cared for over generations, can outlast almost anything.

The View That Made a Roofer's Heart Sing

Up on the terrace, Paris opens up in every direction — the Eiffel Tower framed to the southwest, the Opéra Garnier just across the boulevard, and the white domes of Sacré-Cœur off to the north on the Montmartre hill.

Eiffel Tower

This one stopped us cold. Scalloped slate mansard roof

But while everyone else was pointing their cameras at the tower, we kept getting distracted by the rooftops themselves. Because from up here, you are eye to eye with the roofs of Paris — and they are a masterclass in exactly the materials we work with every day back home.

Scalloped Slate, Up Close

Look at the way those slates are cut into rounded, overlapping scallops — what roofers call fish-scale or scalloped slate. Each piece is shaped and laid by hand so the curves line up across the whole sweeping face of the roof, wrapping around turrets and dormers without missing a beat. It is one of the most demanding patterns in the trade, and the fact that these roofs have stood over the streets of Paris for well over a hundred years tells you everything about what natural slate can do when it is installed by people who truly know the craft.

This is the same material, and the same tradition of hand-craftsmanship, that we bring to every natural slate roof we restore. Standing there in Paris, it felt a little like visiting family.

The Copper Patina Dome

And then there was the copper.

Copper patina dome

That soft blue-green color is not paint and it is not age spoiling the metal — it is patina, the natural protective layer copper forms as it weathers over the decades. Fresh copper starts out bright and penny-colored, then slowly deepens through browns and finally into that famous verdigris green. It is one of the reasons we love working with copper: it does not just survive the years, it becomes more beautiful because of them, all while asking for almost no maintenance in return. You can see that same living finish take shape on the copper roofing we install, though ours is still young and has its whole life ahead of it.

A Little Something for Ricardo

We could not leave without a small keepsake. Right there in the store we found this cap — a "Walk in Paris" piece from one of the store's own Paris labels — and it had Ricardo's name written all over it.

— "Walk in Paris" cap for Ricardo

After thirty-plus years spent on ladders and rooftops perfecting the very craftsmanship we had just been admiring from the terrace, it felt only right to bring a piece of Paris home to him. Somehow a city built on centuries of slate and copper seemed like exactly his kind of place.

Bringing Paris Home

You do not have to fly across the ocean to appreciate a beautiful roof — but standing on that terrace, surrounded by scalloped slate and weathered copper that have watched over Paris for generations, it was impossible not to feel proud of the work we do. These are the materials that outlast us all when they are treated with care and skill, and they are the very same ones we pour our hearts into every day here in North Carolina.

If your home wears a slate or copper roof of its own, it belongs to that same long, beautiful tradition — and we would be honored to help you care for it. Feel free to reach out to us anytime.

Photos taken from the rooftop terrace of Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann, 40 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris.