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Positioned off its west coast and linked to the mainland by a bridge, the Ile de Ré is one in all France’s most sought-after seaside locations. Famend for its picture-perfect villages and 60 miles of sandy shoreline, it has, over time, attracted a well-heeled, primarily bourgeois crowd, in addition to celebrities reminiscent of Vanessa Paradis, the late designer Christian Liaigre, Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry. One other fan is Virginie Deniot, who has managed her brother Jean-Louis’s Paris-based inside design agency for the previous 20 years.
Virginie nonetheless clearly recollects her first go to to the island in 2008. “I fell in love with it,” she says. “The sunshine is unbelievable and it has such attraction. There are vineyards, tractors and fields, and on the identical time ports, crusing boats and seashores.”
Along with her husband, she initially bought a home in one in all its villages, La Couarde-sur-Mer, which had only one disadvantage. “The outside area was not sufficiently big to put in a pool,” she explains. “I actually wished one as a result of it could possibly get very popular in the summertime.” So, when one other, extra spacious property in a parallel road got here up on the market, they determined to leap on the likelihood.
Wrapped round a beneficiant courtyard, the home was constructed within the Forties by a Bordeaux-based household and had remained of their possession ever since. Somewhat serendipitously, Virginie’s husband was already acquainted with it. “He knew the grandchildren and had performed inside the home when he was younger,” she explains. Little work had been carried out since. There have been issues with humidity, the fireside not labored and there was only one toilet. “That they had particular person washbasins and bidets in every bed room,” she recollects. The interiors have been additionally slightly gloomy, with wood partitions and terracotta flooring, and the kitchen solely had one tiny window.
Nonetheless, the property was not with out its attraction. It had wood ceilings, together with the one in the lounge that includes an previous boat mast, in addition to a swish turret. Plus, the problem of renovating it was probably not a problem for Virginie, on condition that her brother is one in all France’s main decorators.
With the Ile de Ré home, he determined to anchor the interiors prior to now. He replicated present doorways, mouldings and different architectural particulars and put in a stone flooring in a standard chequerboard sample within the entry corridor. He additionally built-in plenty of extra classical-looking items of furnishings, together with a settee from his assortment for the English producer George Smith within the sitting room and a pair of Forties wrought-iron curule chairs by the entrance door.
“The thought was to provide the impression that the home belonged to one in all our aunts,” says Virginie. “We wished it to look dated. The very last thing I wanted for was that you can guess it belonged to somebody of my age.” That isn’t to say they didn’t have enjoyable. A part of their inspiration got here from the Belgian caricature hero Tintin, which resulted in using a number of vivid blue colors, essentially the most placing of which might be discovered within the toilet of her three kids – Montaine, Axel and Inès.
Virginie and Jean-Louis additionally performed round with sample and prints, particularly these created by the midcentury Swedish designer Josef Frank. “There’s a type of eccentricity to his fashion,” notes Jean-Louis, who additionally determined to fee the Paris-based ornamental painter Florence Girette to color the partitions of one of many visitor bedrooms on the bottom flooring to resemble a sandstorm. In the identical room, a white mattress cowl was put in with a blue stripe down both facet embellished with pink pompoms. “It’s like a touchdown strip for sailors,” quips Jean-Louis. “After seeing the blue of the ocean for therefore lengthy, they’re blissful to seek out themselves in the course of a desert storm”.
It’s only one in all plenty of nautical references that run all through the home. Others embody the doorways framed by rope, a fish sculpture within the sitting room and a mannequin of the Nineteenth-century racing yacht, America, within the entry corridor, a present from the home’s former homeowners.
The ocean will not be distant, however that didn’t cease Virginie from lastly getting her swimming pool, regardless of the preliminary disparagement of sure neighbours. “They thought of it slightly vulgar to have one within the centre of the village,” she admits. It will, nevertheless, look like they’re beginning to change their minds, particularly after this summer season’s heatwave. As Virginie says: “When it’s low tide and over 35C in the course of August, a pool just isn’t such a foul thought in any case.”
Locations by Jean-Louis Deniot is printed by Rizzoli at £47.95
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