Inside Voltaire’s former Paris apartment on Quai Voltaire, where the Enlightenment philosopher spent the final months of his life, received Benjamin Franklin and died in 1778.

Just 15 miles from central London, Ripley Grange looks as though it has stood beside Epping Forest for centuries. In fact, the Tudor-style country house was built between 1928 and 1930 for industrialist Charles Frederick Clark, whose fortune came from carbon paper and typewriter ribbons.

Built at the turn of the 20th century for James E. Nichols and designed by C.P.H. Gilbert, 4 East 79th Street has lived several lives: private Gilded Age mansion, crime scene, diplomatic address, subdivided residence, and ultimately a painstakingly reconstructed single-family home.

Designed by Horace Trumbauer, whose work includes the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Gilded Age mansion retains a four-story Carrara marble staircase, Samuel Yellin ironwork, and original Louis XV-style salon rooms across more than 10,000 ft² / 929 m².

After decades at the centre of one of Europe’s most glamorous social worlds, Beatriz Patiño commissioned a private residence of her own beside the famous Patiño Palace in Cascais, near Lisbon.

“What separates Staples Point is that its greatest assets can’t be recreated,” says listing agent Sam Michaud of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty. “The land, the frontage, the five lighthouse views, the privacy and the proximity to Portland cannot be replicated.”

Before the Statue of Liberty stood over New York Harbor, she rose above the rooftops of Paris. A former artist’s atelier is for sale on the street where the Statue of Liberty was built and assembled at the workshops of Gaget, Gauthier et Cie.

Built in 1702, this historic villa for sale near Milan sits on 25 acres with formal Italian gardens, a 19th-century English park, and a remarkable hidden Secret Garden.

A 1774 Hudson Valley farmhouse is for sale with the historic barn where Joan Osofsky founded Hammertown, the much-loved furnishings and antiques business that helped shape the region’s relaxed country style.

Commissioned by Francesco Burlamacchi, who was executed for plotting to unite Tuscany’s independent republics against Medici rule, the villa later became home to antifascist jurist Paolo Rossi, who helped draft the constitution of modern Italy.