The first lady’s earlier addresses offer quite the peek behind the curtain, and her former Paris roommate has a few things to say about the woman living there.Born in Slovenia on April 26, 1970, Melania Trump moved to New York City in 1996, years before marrying Donald Trump. Before the famous surname came a succession of very different surroundings, and the photographs reveal a few architectural surprises worth lingering over.Our first stop is Sevnica, Slovenia, where Melania grew up with a father who sold cars and a mother who made patterns at a textile factory. The childhood apartment block might sound like a modest opening act, but those balconies have absolutely dressed for the occasion.

Against the building’s light beige exterior, ochre-orange panels run beside the windows and through the stacked balconies. A quiet little residential block wearing that much orange? Somebody understood the value of an entrance.Rows of white-framed windows give the multistory facade its orderly appearance, topped by a gently pitched roof with dark eaves. Then the balconies interrSome jut outward behind thin metal railings; others are partly enclosed within orange-painted sections. Look closely, and the different shapes give the building more depth than its straightforward outline initially suggests.At street level, clipped hedges border the road, with lawns, parked cars and tall trees around the building. Presidential grandeur was still a very distant prospect, but this everyday childhood address has earned its place in the family album.