-
Archives
- February 2016
- January 2016
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
-
Meta
Author Archives: Cristopher
Chez Catroux Provence
Toujours Provence continues, bringing us to Betty and François Catroux’s 16th-century farmhouse, Les Ramades, in the Luberon. Imagine escaping here from Paris, approaching the property through apricot groves to a dead-end road lined with plane trees, where you then enter the intimate and highly stylish world of the Catroux’s. The approach only hints at what’s […]
SHARE:
Haut Provençal
Our tour of Provençal homes continues with the farmhouse of Terry and Jean de Gunzburg, longtime clients and friends of celebrated French interior designer Jacques Grange. What is particularly unique to this Provencal mas is the balance Grange achieved from bringing together local rustic color and materials with sophisticated art and decor. Grange retained the […]
SHARE:
Home on the Grange
Our tour of some of my favorite homes in Provence continues, following my posts Tourjour Provence, Truex Provence and Chez Cameron. Images of Jacques Grange’s farmhouse, Mas Mireio, have been protected in plastic sheet covers ever since I pulled them from HG magazine years ago, in the late 1980’s. His Provençal vacation home, which is reserved […]
SHARE:
Chez Cameron
Roderick “Rory” Cameron left his idyllic Mediterranean villa, Le Clos, on the French Riviera after downsizing from his mother’s (Lady Kenmare) oft publicized villa, La Fiorentina, in the exclusive enclave of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Soon following his mother’s death he escaped the Riviera due to burgeoning crowds for Ireland with a romantic assumption he would make it […]
SHARE:
Truex Provence
Van Day Truex – once dean of The Parsons School of Design and design director of Tiffany & Co., and friend of Billy Baldwin and teacher to Albert Hadley – epitomized restraint and elegance. Truex is famous for his design directive: “Control, edit and distill”. A distillation of his thoroughly edited approach to classicism was […]
SHARE:
Toujours Provence
Posted June 26, 2013. Filed in François Catroux, Jacques Grange, Provence, Understated Luxury, Van Day Truex
Summertime in Provence is a feast for the senses – fields of sleep-inducing lavender contrasting the positively sunny disposition of row upon row of sunflowers; the colorful and tempting displays of fruit, vegetables and flowers at village marchés arranged in eye-catching compositions reminiscent of a Cezanne or Van Gogh; aromatic herbs carrying their heady notes […]
SHARE:
Atelier Calder
Posted June 18, 2013. Filed in Ateliers
There is something particularly fascinating – fantastical, even – about an artist’s studio, where the artist spends much of his, or her, time wielding the tools of their trade. They’re alchemists, many of them, fashioning gold from metal, leaving clues here and there that hint at their guarded secrets and imagined worlds. One such environment […]
SHARE:
Monsieur Moderne – Part Quatre
Posted June 9, 2013. Filed in Moderne, Uncategorized
Though begun in 1932, Villa Cavrois did not reach its epogee until 1947, after the Nazi’s had commandeered it during World War II. It was designed and built by Robert Mallet-Stevens for inustrialist Paul Cavrois in the city of Roubaix, near the Belgian border. When the house was finally completed in the post-war years it […]
SHARE:
Monsieur Moderne – Part Tres
Posted May 16, 2013. Filed in Moderne, Uncategorized
The fashion designer Paul Poiret – who liberated women from their corsets at the turn-of-the-century, draping them instead in yards of fabric and kimono-style jackets – commissioned Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1920 to build a Modernist Art Deco villa, his first large project, Château de Mézy. “It was all-white, pure, majestic and a little provocative, just like […]
SHARE:
Monsieur Moderne – Part Deux
Posted May 13, 2013. Filed in Moderne
After delving a bit further into what information exists on architect Robert Mallet-Stevens I became more fascinated with his distinctive oeuvre. I have to admit I was barely familiar with his name or body of work, or had forgotten him since those days of Design History 101 long ago. There are scant few photographs of […]
SHARE:
Monsieur Moderne
Posted May 9, 2013. Filed in Moderne
After completing five posts on wondrous curiosity cabinets I am ready for a breath of fresh air; ready to leave the dark, cramped quarters of magpie collectors and their intellectual pursuits for wide open spaces and understated luxury. I’m ready for a vacation on the French Riveria at the Villa Noailles. The de Noailles name […]
SHARE:
Cabinet of Wonder – Part V
Posted April 21, 2013. Filed in 19th-Century-Style Eclecticism, Romantic Classical Style, Studio Peregalli, The Collectors
Often we sense or know when something is amiss. Sometimes it is a gut reaction, or intuition if you will. Other times the signs are there before us, but we choose not to notice them, or we put them off to a time in the future when we can better address them. Umberto Pasti knew […]
SHARE: