Outside Paris, a 19th-Century House Conceals a Minimalist Tableau Rich With Color
In a nature preserve, two creative directors design a colorful country home.
In a nature preserve, two creative directors design a colorful country home.
On an overcast morning in October 2018, Alix and Onur Keçe approached an overgrown plot in the Vexin nature preserve northwest of Paris just as the sun broke through the clouds.
The couple, whose main residence is an apartment in the city’s tony 7th arrondissement, had been looking for a country home for years. They wanted a place where their two daughters—Ellis, six, and Panda, three—could run freely, and ideally it would be within an hour’s car ride so that "there wouldn’t be too much screaming on the way there," says Onur.
A white gravel allée leads to Onur and Alix Keçe’s weekend retreat an hour outside Paris. The couple, a pair of creatives, oversaw the renovation of the long-neglected 1892 structure themselves, with Onur designing the living spaces and built-ins and Alix responsible for everything else.
Photo by Alejandra Hauser
In the primary bedroom, daughters Ellis and Panda play on pieces of a 1972 Camaleonda sofa by Mario Bellini. A Davide Groppi Moon pendant, made of Japanese paper, hangs overhead.
Photo by Alejandra Hauser
They’d looked at numerous properties, but none measured up to the traditional stone house that stood sunlit before them on that fall day. Built in 1892 at the edge of a forest, the house, with a three-story tower and an attached ivy-covered barn, was part of a compound that also included two additional one-room structures.
Left untouched since the 1960s, and visited only once a year by the previous owners, the home had fallen into disrepair. "The garden was like a jungle—but that is what we loved about it," says Onur.
A concrete staircase leads to a newly added mezzanine that contains Onur and Alix’s bathroom and a small sauna. A gloss-sealed MDF closet doubles as a headboard for the couple’s floating concrete bed. Behind the closet is the girls’ bedroom and bath.
Photo by Alejandra Hauser
See the full story on Dwell.com: Outside Paris, a 19th-Century House Conceals a Minimalist Tableau Rich With Color
Related stories:
