PARIS, 2 September 2003 — To get to the Souren residence in Paris, you go down to the Seine River and walk along the embankment until you come to a boat with a bright red hull.

This is where the Sourens live, on the Isadora, a 40-meter-long peniche, or barge, moored on the right bank of the Seine, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Once aboard, you descend a polished wooden stairway past a well-equipped kitchen, a small dining room and, one level deeper, a large living room with walls of mahogany wainscotting and elegant panels of elm burr.

Another stairway leads further down to the bedrooms for Pierre and Kerstin Souren and their 14-year-old daughter, Liselotte.

“We have about 176 square meters of living space,” Pierre Souren says with pride, for he singlehandedly transformed the old barge into a luxury home.

In fact, except for the porthole windows, the absence of city noise and the occasional gentle rocking caused by a passing boat, you could be sitting in an elegant flat in a high-rent district of Paris instead of on a houseboat on the Seine.

The Isadora is one of approximately 1,000 residential boats moored in the greater Paris area, according to figures supplied by the Autonomous Port of Paris, which manages the Seine riverbank where the Sourens live.

This means that several thousand people living in and around the French capital enjoy the privilege of a postal address that is painted on the stern or bow of a boat.

This could create some difficulties, Kerstin says. “Last year I never received my voter registration card in the post. So I wasn’t able to vote in the general elections.”

However, that was a minor inconvenience compared to the problems provoked by high water. During the floods of 2000, the Seine overflowed its banks and the embankment stood under two meters of water, Pierre Souren says.

“At the time, we were moored farther downstream, under a bridge,” his wife continues. “The river was so high that, to get to work, I had to climb a ladder from the boat to the bridge.”

And then there is the problem of the ducks. “They sometimes come and lay their eggs in our plants,” Pierre Souren says. “And sometimes we have to put the newborn in a bucket and lower it to the river so that it can join its mother in the water.”

Despite these unconventional hazards, the Sourens say they would not trade living on the Isadora for any other home in the world. “It’s much easier to live in a big city if you swim against the stream,” Kerstin notes.

Pierre agrees. “It’s a small, quiet island far from the noise and aggravation of society.”

A boat pilot for most of his adult life, Pierre Souren has owned the Isadora since 1976 and used it to transport goods, such as wheat, corn and steel, in and out of France on the elaborate canal system that criss-crosses the country and connects it with its neighbors.

He decided to turn the Isadora into a home when injuries to his right leg made it impossible to continue in the profession. He carried out the work in stages over 14 years.

Even with Pierre doing almost all of the work himself, Kerstin estimates that it cost them more than 1.5 million French francs (currently about $300,000) to turn the barge into a home.

For her, the highpoint was the installation of central heating in 1998. “Before that, the winters were hard,” she says, shivering in recollection.

As rents continue to climb in and around Paris, houseboat living is becoming increasingly attractive to the French. Because he works for the Autonomous Port of Paris as a captain of a river-sea coaster, the Sourens pay a rent of only 200 euros ($224) for the Isadora’s mooring space. For non-mariners, the fees are higher — but not by much.

Depending on the size of the boat and on where it is moored, rents vary from 200 to 762 euros per month. But first you need a boat. A barge the size of the Isadora that is outfitted for living sells for between 300,000 and 800,000 euros.

That may seem like a lot of money, but it is worth it, the Sourens say, especially if you want to travel without leaving your home. “The best thing about our home is that it moves,” Kerstin says. “If you have a pilot’s license, you can take off tomorrow, sail along the canals and rivers until you find a beautiful spot.”

“And if you get tired of that place, you can move on to another, and then another,” Pierre says. “France is very big.”