Displaying posts labeled "Concrete"

This home speaks to me on sooooo many levels. Having a history and rustic vibe yet simple, modern architecture on the inside. That dichotomy as well as white vs black makes this home have so much energy and evokes emotion. I am completely smitten. Designed by Hallworth.

Nestled on ten acres in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, is the quintessential Adobe of Montecito, named by an early owner, Ennisbrook, an Irish word meaning land by a river. Dating back in parts to the mid-1800s, it is an early architectural darling of the town it inhabits. The Adobe was left gutted with dust floors, essentially derelict as a result of an abandoned renovation when my clients acquired the property. The property had a heavy, mature, gravitas in juxtaposition to the young newlywed owners. The seriousness of the building required subtle strong detailing. However, the primary design inspiration came from Notre Dame du Ronschamp.  Corbusier’s masterpiece has an air of brutal honesty. The space is monastic and meditative, heavy-lidded and softly lit.   Architecturally we had similar conditions. Ennisbrook has limited fenestration and dark timber, hewn trussed ceiling original to the building.  Ronschamp’s walls are stark white, yet ethereal.  We similarly employed white reflective plaster and floors cast in integral white concrete, which speckled and crazed like a bird’s eggshell. Our light is restricted, but serene.  The kitchen blackened as a hearth itself is the heart of the home. Three years later the client moved into a home that was entirely realized, furnished with brutal simplicity, comfortable and negligently sexy, redolent of the past but infinitely modern, a perfect hillside retreat.

I still have San Miguel de Allende on my list of must-visit places and what a dream it would be to stay at a place as gorgeous as Mesón Hidalgo.

Laura Kirar was leaving the city of San Miguel de Allende for another when she stepped, by chance, through the doors of a centuries-old manor house off Calle Hidalgo and—utterly enchanted—into an entirely different story. The house, renamed Mesón Hidalgo, was founded in 2019 as an intimate collaboration between four women-led brands rooted in México—a designer, a silversmith, a clothier, and a perfumer. Blurring the lines between environment and experience, style and lifestyle, history and present, México’s first guesthouse-boutique offers three one-of-a-kind, private guestrooms (designed by Laura), four luxury shops, and endlessly curated experiences hosted by artists and inspired by the spirit of San Miguel de Allende. From the artisan soap in the bath to the art on the walls, nearly every unforgettable detail of our home is designed to become part of yours.

Dear Design Gods hear my prayer. I want a studio space at the end of my garden just like this one by London-based Turner Architects. A library, under a tree, at the end of the garden. Sigh. I have the tree in the garden. I just need these talented architects to complete my dream.

Photography by Adam Scott

Contemporary French chic in this family home Biarritz-based L’Atelier Delphine Carrere. Think concrete cave with double height voids punching out the space while timber slats not only soften the sun and the hard materials but provide warming caramel tones. A play of positive and negative, man made and natural, inside and out.

It’s like I say week in week out. If you have to drag yourself into work on a weekend it helps if it’s somewhere stylish. Ironside Construction Head Office by Brahman Perera.