Height of Style
SOARING ABOVE MIAMI’S SUN-DRENCHED SOUTH BEACH, THIS PIED-À-TERRE FEATURES ROUGH-HEWN STONE AND RAW TEXTURES INSPIRED BY AN ARTIST STUDIO AND ITS PROXIMITY TO THE SEA
This stunning abode draws inspiration from an artist atelier and its proximity to the sea
“What should an interior in Miami look like today? I guess nobody knows,” muses Paris-based interior designer Jean-louis Deniot. Nothing has particularly made an impression on the French designer since Gianni Versace’s fantastically opulent Casa Casuarina on Ocean Drive, and that was some 25 years ago. Other archetypal images include all-white, high-rise apartments and the art-filled homes of American collectors like Beth Rudin Dewoody, George Lindemann and Martin Margulies. When conjuring up a concept for this twobedroom unit directly on South Beach, Deniot decided to propose a different paradigm, inspired by the city’s status of one of the art capitals of the world—a distinction achieved thanks to the success of the Art Basel Miami fair, which attracts 70,000 visitors annually. “Before that, you had only a bizarre mix of pensioners in wheelchairs and drag queens who would party all night,” he recalls, with a hint of amusement. The image that quickly came to his mind was that of an artist’s studio—and not just any artist’s. Deniot derived his inspiration from the reconstitution of Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncu i’s atelier near the Pompidou Centre in Paris, which features a monochrome blue painting on one wall, an abstract brass bird sculpture and an accumulation of his iconic totems and rough blocks of stone. “For me, it’s the ultimate atelier,” enthuses Deniot. “Plus, referencing Brâncu i brings a form of veracity that’s in contrast with the frenzy of much of the contemporary art world today.”
NATURAL CANVAS
The owner of this flat is an Internet entrepreneur, whose primary residence is Los Angeles. Located on the 26th floor, the twobedroom unit affords both phenomenal views and a five-metre-high ceiling in the main living space. Its previous decor was less stunning. Deniot recalls it as being like a pastiche of a Spanish castle. Think orange walls, 18th century tapestries, wrought-iron chandeliers, oriental rugs and fake columns. Not surprisingly, Deniot had absolutely no compunction about gutting the entire apartment, going even as far as to replace the windows. He then left exposed the building’s raw concrete walls as a nod to Brâncu i’s rough-hewn blocks of stone. “You could initially think that concrete is in complete opposition to the sky and the beach and the palm trees, but that’s not the case”, notes Deniot. “It’s an extremely organic material, whose roughness and simplicity goes perfectly with the beach environment”. Other references to nature are also present. The vibrant blue of the carpet, which extends out onto the terrace from the living room, is an obvious allusion to the ocean. The brass panels on the hallway walls not only bring a touch of sun, but also make the narrow space appear larger, while the master bedroom ceiling has been decorated with a swirling painting that looks rather like a satellite image of a cyclone. “The idea was not actually for it to resemble a hurricane,” insists Deniot. “I just wanted something circular that would contrast with the rather rigid, box-like shape of the room.”
LARGER THAN LIFE
Due to the living room’s lofty volume, the majority of its furnishings are deliberately large. The straw marquetry TV cabinet measures 1.8m in height, the sitting room sofa is three-metre long and the vintage 1920s wrought-iron chandelier has 32 lights. The latter was created at the same workshop as those in the Villa Kérylos in Beaulieu-surMer in the south of France. The artworks, meanwhile, have been arranged a little nonchalantly to mimic the atmosphere of an artist’s studio. “I wanted to give the impression that things are provisional and can be moved around,” states Deniot. Throughout, he was also keen to play with reflections, as witnessed by the huge arched mirror and the abstract painting by French artist Jérome Robbe, which was made from varnish on mirrored Plexiglas. “You make what’s tangible abstract and what’s rigid fluid,” he notes. “What’s great about our profession is all the tricks for making things appear different from how they really are.”
POETIC REALM
Deniot first visited Miami some 15 years ago and has been returning regularly ever since. “When I work in New York, I go there at the weekend,” he says. “It’s much better to be on the beach in February than in the middle of a snowstorm!” These days, he has several other projects in Florida too, including a large apartment on the ultra-exclusive Fisher Island and a residential high-rise development called Elysée on Biscayne Bay. For Deniot, there is certainly something surreal about the end result. “You feel like you’re on a cloud,” he asserts. “You’re at the same height as planes and birds. There’s even an eagle’s nest directly above.” Some of his acquaintances, meanwhile, have qualified the interior as being “futuristic”—a term Deniot finds both flattering and amusing. “I never use many contemporary items in my work. So I’d never consider it could be perceived as avant garde,” he says. Still, whatever the term, one thing is for sure—the apartment sets a thrilling new standard of just how a Miami interior should be.
Inspired by Miami’s status as an art capital, this home was designed in the style of an artist’s studio