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House · Le Village Anglais, Suresnes

The Huxleys' House (3 Rue du Bac, Suresnes)

Private residence

A private address with nothing marked. Whether the house standing at No. 3 today is the one Aldous and Maria Huxley rented has not been established.

The house west of Paris where Aldous and Maria Huxley lived from October 1928 to April 1930. They told D. H. Lawrence to take Lady Chatterley's Lover to Paris, put him up for a week mid-visit, and got him to a doctor.

Address
3 Rue du Bac, 92150 Suresnes
Years
October 1928 – April 1930
No photograph survivesThe same imagined villa in colour under a grey winter sky, its shutters closed and the Paris skyline beyond the bare trees

The same reconstruction in colour, in the Paris winter the Huxleys complained about and eventually left.

Artistic reconstruction — no photograph survives

The story

The friendship

Huxley met Lawrence in 1915 and spent the rest of Lawrence's life in his orbit. He put a version of him into Point Counter Point in 1928 as the character Mark Rampion, which Lawrence read and disliked. The two men were opposites in almost every respect that usually matters: Eton and Balliol against a Nottinghamshire mining village, satire against prophecy, an ironist against a man with no irony in him at all.[1]

Maria Huxley did much of the practical work of the friendship. She typed part of Lady Chatterley's Lover. She and Aldous were with the Lawrences at Vence at the end, and it was to Huxley that the job of editing the letters fell in 1932.[2]

A week in the suburbs

Suresnes in 1929 was a river suburb with factories along the Seine and villas on the slope behind, twenty minutes from the centre and a world away from Montparnasse. The Huxleys took the house at 3 rue du Bac in October 1928 and kept it until April 1930, which makes it the address they held throughout the year Lawrence was dying.[3]

Lawrence came out for a week in the middle of his Paris month, leaving the hotel on boulevard du Montparnasse and the negotiations behind him. His verdict on the suburb was that it was sleepy and dull. He was not an easy houseguest anywhere, and he was very ill.[3]

The doctor's appointment the Huxleys arranged is the part worth holding onto. Lawrence had been refusing the diagnosis for years, calling it bronchial trouble and a weak chest, and travelling towards warm weather as though climate were treatment. He went back into Paris, settled the contract for the cheap edition on 5 April, left for the Mediterranean two days later, and died at Vence on 2 March 1930.[4]

Visiting today

  • Suresnes is on the Seine immediately west of the Bois de Boulogne, in the Hauts-de-Seine
  • Transilien L from Saint-Lazare to Suresnes Mont Valérien, or tram T2 along the river
  • The address is 3 rue du Bac. Nothing marks it, and whether the house standing there now is the one they rented has not been established
  • The Mont Valérien above the town holds the memorial to those shot there under the Occupation, and the American cemetery
  • Worth the trip? Not for Lawrence. He spent a week here in March 1929 and nothing at the address records it

Last verified: August 2026.

Key facts

Where
3 rue du Bac, Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine
Who lived here
Aldous and Maria Huxley, with their son Matthew
How long
October 1928 to April 1930
Lawrence's stay
One week in March 1929
Why it matters
The Huxleys sent him to Paris, and to a doctor
The building today
A house stands at No. 3; whether it is the same one is not established

In images

An imagined view of the house the Huxleys rented. No photograph of 3 rue du Bac from their time there is known to exist, so the building here is invented; only the address, the slope and the view towards Paris are drawn from what Suresnes is. This is a reconstruction, not a record.Artistic reconstruction — no photograph survives
The same reconstruction in colour, in the Paris winter the Huxleys complained about and eventually left.Artistic reconstruction — no photograph survives
What stands at 3 rue du Bac today: a brick and stone house with garages under it, the number on the wall either side of the door. Whether this is the building the Huxleys rented or a later one on the same plot has not been established.Editorial illustration
The same frontage in colour, under the chestnut on the pavement.Editorial illustration

Timeline

  1. 1915

    Aldous Huxley meets D. H. Lawrence; the friendship lasts until Lawrence's death.

  2. 1928

    Huxley publishes Point Counter Point, whose Mark Rampion draws on Lawrence.

  3. 1928

    In October the Huxleys take the house at 3 rue du Bac, Suresnes, with their son Matthew.

  4. 1929

    The Huxleys, living at Suresnes, tell Lawrence to take Lady Chatterley's Lover to Paris.

  5. 1929

    Lawrence spends a week here in March and is taken to the Huxleys' doctor.

  6. 1930

    The Huxleys are at Vence at the end; Lawrence dies there on 2 March.

  7. 1930

    In April they give up the Suresnes house and move south to Sanary-sur-Mer.

  8. 1932

    Huxley edits the first published collection of Lawrence's letters.

On the map

Questions before you go

Why did D. H. Lawrence go to Suresnes?

Because Aldous and Maria Huxley were living there. They were his closest friends at the end of his life, and he spent a week at their house in the middle of the month he spent in Paris in March 1929. He found the suburb sleepy and dull.

Who told Lawrence to publish in Paris?

The Huxleys. French publication law did not police foreign-language books the way British and American law did, and the city had a set of small English-language presses that existed for books the trade would not touch. Lawrence took the advice and came in March 1929.

Where exactly did the Huxleys live in Suresnes?

At 3 rue du Bac, from October 1928 until April 1930. The address is recorded in the Aldous Huxley Archive's chronology of his life. A house stands at the number today, but whether it is the one they rented, or a later building on the same plot, has not been established.

How close were Huxley and Lawrence?

Close enough that Maria Huxley typed part of Lady Chatterley's Lover, that both Huxleys were at Vence when Lawrence died in March 1930, and that Aldous edited the first collection of his letters in 1932. They had almost nothing in common as writers, which seems to have been part of it.

Is there anything to see?

No. Nothing is marked and the address is not pinned to a building. Suresnes is worth a visit for the Mont Valérien, which holds the memorial to those executed there under the Occupation and the American cemetery, but not for Lawrence.

Writers who knew this place

Illustrated portrait of Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

British · English novelist of Brave New World, which he wrote not in Paris but on the Mediterranean coast at Sanary-sur-Mer. His French years ran from a rented house at Suresnes on the western edge of Paris, where he pushed the dying D. H. Lawrence towards the city's presses, to seven years on the Riviera; he then left for California, wrote the best-known modern account of taking mescaline, the hallucinogenic drug made from the peyote cactus, and died on the day President Kennedy was shot.

Lived here · 1928–1930

Aldous and Maria Huxley rented the house at 3 rue du Bac in Suresnes, the river suburb west of the Bois de Boulogne, from October 1928 until April 1930, with their son Matthew. It is the only address Huxley held in the Paris region; from there they advised the dying D. H. Lawrence to bring Lady Chatterley's Lover to the Paris presses, put him up for a week in March 1929 and took him to their doctor. In April 1930 they gave the house up and moved south to Sanary-sur-Mer, where Brave New World was written the following year.

— Aldous Huxley: A Chronology of His Life; Catherine Brown, D. H. Lawrence in Paris in 1929

Illustrated portrait of D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

English · English novelist and poet out of a Nottinghamshire coalfield. A court destroyed The Rainbow in 1915, the police took his paintings off a London wall in 1929, and he came to Paris that March to get Lady Chatterley's Lover cheaply into print.

Frequented by · 1929

He spent a week with Aldous and Maria Huxley in the middle of his Paris month, and they arranged for him to see their doctor. He found the suburb sleepy and dull. It was the Huxleys who had sent him to Paris in the first place.

— Catherine Brown, D. H. Lawrence in Paris in 1929

References

References

The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document The Huxleys' House (3 Rue du Bac, Suresnes), the people connected to it, and its place in Suresnes.

  1. 1↑Aldous Huxley: A Biography

    Biography
    Chatto & Windus, 1973
    Used for

    Biographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to The Huxleys' House (3 Rue du Bac, Suresnes).

  2. 2↑Aldous Huxley: A Chronology of His Life

    Archive
    Aldous Huxley Archive
    Used for

    Archival evidence used to document the historical record connected to The Huxleys' House (3 Rue du Bac, Suresnes).

    View source

  1. 3abD. H. Lawrence in Paris in 1929

    Website
    Catherine Brown
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the The Huxleys' House (3 Rue du Bac, Suresnes) page.

    View source

  2. 4↑Extended Biography of D. H. Lawrence

    Website
    University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the The Huxleys' House (3 Rue du Bac, Suresnes) page.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.

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