A 17th-century Provençal farmhouse sympathetically renovated by its designer owner
Every so often, a stranger will knock on the front door of the furniture designer Victoria Stainow’s house in Provence. These are invariably elderly, elegant French actresses, who ask politely if they might take a look round a place that they used to visit when they were young and the house belonged to Pierre Delbée, director of the exalted Paris-based design firm Maison Jansen.
During the post-war years, the Delbées played host to a glittering convergence of artists, intellectuals, people from the film industry and royalty. This is exactly what one would expect from the man at the helm of Jansen, a design house with a reputation that is deeply intertwined with the tragi-romantic mythology of its powerful patrons Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The Queen Mother once spent the night in what is now Victoria’s bedroom and Jean Cocteau, who was a regular visitor, designed the room that leads directly off it– a vaulted grotto with pink stucco walls covered in tessellating pebble mosaics.
The Cocteau room is not the only eccentricity in this house, which Victoria agrees is ‘certainly not a typical Provençal maison de maître. I refer to it as a farmhouse – a mas – but it is slightly Italian in feel with the cypress trees and the shutters. It has a formality to it that is unusual.’
The oldest parts – the sitting room and the main bedroom – were built in the 17th century and were hewn from the face of a single huge rock, which still adjoins the house. This had been a working quarry belonging to the farmer who built and lived in the house. New rooms and outbuildings were added higgledy-piggledy by subsequent occupants over the years, predominantly in the 18th century. Victoria and her husband Christopher bought the house in 2005, and a period of ‘lightening up’ ensued. ‘We lived in it for a long time and just did bits and pieces,’ she explains.
The couple, who are American, had lived in London for many years (their flat was featured in the November 2019 issue of House & Garden) but have friends and strong family connections in France, so decided to make Provence their permanent base. Victoria left her job of 16 years in the client services department at Sotheby’s and began to forge relationships with local artists, antique dealers and artisans, which inadvertently led to the genesis of her eponymous company. A mid-century coffee table ‘probably in the style of Willy Rizzo’, picked up while she was shopping for antiques in nearby L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, was admired by so many friends that she had it reproduced. She now sells furniture and lighting – mid 20th-century revivals along with some contemporary pieces – designed in collaboration with makers whom she has discovered on her travels. The house is the ideal testing ground for these pieces. Dotted throughout the rooms, they are decorative palate cleansers, providing clever visual counterpoints to the older pieces that she has accumulated over the years.
In the sitting room, for instance, a red ceramic side table produced for Victoria by the artist Caitriona Manoury balances two sofas made in Paris in the 1980s and upholstered in red brocade. They have travelled with the family from ‘Paris to Scotland to London to Provence in the same fabric’. In another part of the room, Caitriona’s ‘Ballon’ lamps are paired with an ornate Spanish table from a favourite antique dealer, Antoine Ramis, and a 1950s painting by Russian émigré artist André Petroff, sourced in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. There is also a facsimile of the original brass coffee table, now with a red painted base.
In early 2020, just as the world was going into lockdown, Victoria and her husband embarked on a major renovation project to rationalise the space, connecting an external studio and chapel to the main body of the house, and adding a substantial new kitchen on one side. The architects Atelier K designed a gabled ceiling using reclaimed beams that echo the older parts of the house. ‘It’s a much more cohesive space now. Because the renovation work was carried out during the pandemic, Christopher and I weren’t there when the kitchen roof went up. I hadn’t quite grasped the scale from the designs – how high and airy it would be,’ says Victoria.
The new kitchen cabinets, also designed by the architects, were made by local craftspeople. The floors throughout the house were replaced with terracotta tiles, with a different pattern in each room. The colours, she says, ‘weren’t planned with any great intent; I tried to work with the house, and soft greens and strong reds look great with the stone’. The final layer of the scheme was pattern – ginghams and delicate floral motifs, often drawn from 17th- and 18thcentury documents, and mostly by French designers: Braquenié, Nicole Fabre, Claremont, Antoinette Poisson.
It is hard to imagine how the space could have been anything other than what it is now. For a house that is so newly finished, the interiors feel remarkably settled and offer plenty for the eye to feast on, without being fussy or crowded. The secret? ‘Mixing periods. I’m not an interior designer, but I have great fun creating rooms that feel original,’ says Victoria. ‘I’m very inspired by the homes of people who keep things because they love them, not just because they go with other things. I always like to add something that feels a little discordant’.
Victoria Stainow is a member of The List by House & Garden, our essential directory of design professionals. Visit The List by House & Garden here.
Victoria Stainow: victoriastainow.com Atelier K: k-architectes.ch
Paul Massey1/11Moving the fireplace and installing a reproduction chimneypiece has turned the darker end of the room into an inviting space. Two 1980s sofas in their original red brocade fabric are teamed with a ceramic side table by Caitriona Manoury, antique chairs from Patrick Pascal in Fontvieille and a mid-century coffee table. A painting by Catharine Warren provides a distinctive focal point.
Paul Massey2/11A 1950s painting by André Petroff hangs above a carved Spanish table from Antiquités Ramis in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, with red ‘Ballon’ lamps by Caitriona Manoury.
Paul Massey3/11A chandelier bought at Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen in Paris is suspended from the 17th-century vaulted ceiling above a sofa in George Spencer Design’s ‘Spencer Velvet’ in aegean, chairs in ‘Richelieu Hamot’ wool by Edmond Petit from Turnell & Gigon and a brass coffee table from Victoria’s collection. A wall in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Olive’ sets off a painting by Christian Manoury.
Paul Massey4/11Curtains in ‘Bengali’ cotton by Braquenié and a chair designed by Victoria based on a 1940s Parisian creation by Dominique and covered in ‘Rochambeau’ cotton in rose by Le Manach, both from Pierre Frey, are complemented by a geometric rug.
Paul Massey5/11It’s a folly really; very Cocteau,’ says Victoria of this space designed by Jean Cocteau in the mid 20th century. The rattan furniture was sourced by Nicolas Wamin in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.
Paul Massey6/11Designed by the architects to look as if they had always been there, the units were built by local craftspeople and finished with dark granite worktops and a splashback in old Italian tiles from Riccardo Barthel. Rugs from Sanaiy Carpets soften the terracotta floor, which runs throughout the house with a different tile design in each room – ‘a brilliant idea from the architects’, says Victoria.
Paul Massey7/11Antoinette Poisson’s ‘Oiseaux et Feuillage’ wallpaper on the sloped ceiling, with a matching pendant light, and Namay Samay’s ‘Gamcha’ gingham in mayan on the beds gives it a quintessentially French look.
Paul Massey8/11Once used by the Queen Mother when visiting, it was stripped right back during the restoration work. A chandelier from Antiquités Ramis accentuates the original ceiling, while Delft ceramics are showcased on the reproduction chimneypiece. Armchairs from Victoria’s Sotheby’s days ‘in the oldest upholstery you can imagine’ and a rug from Sanaiy Carpets add rich pattern and texture.
Paul Massey9/11Farrow & Ball’s deep red ‘Incarnadine’ on the ceiling picks up on the distinctive coral light made by a local artist, which Victoria says ‘gives a lovely glow after dark.
Paul Massey10/11A table brightened by a Souleiado tablecloth and chairs from Kok Maison, with cushions from Pierre Frey’s outdoor collection bought years ago, provide an inviting spot for summer dining in the shade of a lime tree.
Paul Massey11/11Victoria and her husband adapted the existing pool, making it shallower and narrower, and adding a Pierre de Bourgogne limestone surround, where two rattan chairs from Kok Maison offer a quiet place to sit. Cypress trees – some very old – are dotted throughout the garden; here, a row of tall shaped trees stand out against the pale Provençal stone, screening the pool from the house.
