Category Archives: Pierre Bergé

Winter Gardens

L’esprit du jardin d’hiver is in the air, a quest for a life-affirming sanctuary in colder climes. Russian royalty dedicated palaces to Winter, as with the sixteen-hundred room Winter Palace of the Romanov’s in St. Petersberg. Emperor Nikolai I decreed that Russian artist Eduard Gau create watercolor renderings of the Winter Palace’s interior, the Russian Empire’s […]

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In Search of Lost Time

Yesterday I was in the mood to leave winter behind for somewhere exotic and my journey took to me to Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s Russian folly, a reproduction of a dacha, on the their property at Château Gabriel on the coast of Deauville in Normandy, France. (See Russian Reverie). After pouring over articles […]

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Russian Reverie

With all the news of record snowfall and plummeting temperatures across the Eastern board an exotic getaway sounds very enticing. And what could be more exotic than the late Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s Russian folly at Château Gabriel overlooking the coast of Deauville in France? Granted, the weather on the coast of Normandy this […]

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Villa Mabrouka

With a view across the Strait of Gibraltar to the coast of Spain, Villa Mabrouka, Arabic for “The House of Luck”, is a peaceful walled complex set into a lush landscape perched at cliff’s edge, a mere five minutes from the labyrinthine souk in the Medina of Tangier. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé purchased […]

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La Zahia: Dar es Saada

Dar es Saada, Arabic for “The House of Happiness”, became Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s first Moroccan retreat in the late 1970’s. Having vacationed there previously they were introduced to the maestro of pan-Arabic orientalist style, Bill Willis, through the haut-monde of European society who also either vacationed there or owned a retreat of […]

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La Zahia: Villa Oasis

The seductive allure of Marrakesh has cast its spell on many an expat over the last century. In the late 1970’s Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé purchased a compound in Marrakesh centered around exotic gardens originally designed by artist Jacques Marjorelle in 1924. In his honor they named his Art Deco style villa […]

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Villa Léon L’Africain à Tanger

Posted February 12, 2013. Filed in French Colonial Style, Orientalism, Pierre Bergé

Fresh from the Caribbean and a recent lazy Sunday afternoon viewing the movie Out of Africa I’m feeling the call of expat life in a far-off exotic locale. Today’s post takes us to Tangier; specifically, to the recently renovated Villa Léon l’Africain purchased in 2007 by founder-in-part of the fashion house Yves Saint Laurent. Generally recognized […]

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