creative spark
A plot of land, a bold colour palette and handcrafted furniture were all key for Camila Gimeno’s first home with husband Nicolas
Bold, bright and colourful – this house in Biarritz is brimming with personality
When newlyweds Camila Gimeno and Nicolas Dazet were looking to set up home together on the southwest coast of France, they knew they wanted to live in the surfer village of Hossegor. ‘It’s a popular place for holidaying and Nicolas’s parents had a summer house here but many of the properties aren’t suited to the winter,’ explains Camila, who is originally from Santiago but moved to France after meeting Nicolas 10 years ago. Their solution was to design and build their own with the help of architect friend, Boris Letexier. ‘ We found a beautiful 1,000sq m patch right next to the forest, between a lake and the beach.’
They bought the land in 2011 and after eight months of work, moved into their detached, two-bedroom wood-slatted home with their son Diego, now 11 months. ‘The first week we lived here, the fence wasn’t finished, so deer would come into the garden every night and eat our dog Faina’s food,’ recalls Camila. As well as plenty of natural light, the couple also wanted an open-plan ground floor sitting room and kitchen-diner. ‘We love cooking and knew we would spend a lot of time entertaining and chilling in the kitchen.’
As an industrial designer with her own woodwork business (delmarmobilier.com), Camila found the interior of the house was the perfect testing ground for her creative ideas. First, she built the pine table that takes centre stage in the open-plan space; then she set about designing a custom shelving system for Nicolas’s extensive vinyl collection. ‘It was designed to fit around a small window, so it was made specifically for one corner of the main room,’ she says. ‘When it arrived, it weighed 450kg and was in one piece. Nine of our friends had to lift it up to the largest sitting room window to fit it through. Then, as I had designed it to match the height of the window, it was really tricky to get it inside. Rookie mistake!’
Equally as striking as Camila’s furniture is her use of colour, from the sunshine yellow feature wall to the royal blue modular sofa. ‘I love how bold hues can add so much contrast to a room,’ she says. ‘For me, the key is to know how to play around with colour and balance that out with natural textures,’ she says, citing the concrete floor and the steel kitchen counter stools with sheepskin throws as examples. On the walls, the artwork is a mix of Bauhaus posters, photos by Nicolas, and paintings by Bruna Truffa, Camila’s aunt.
Other Chilean connections include the cluster of lamps that hangs over the dining table and the name of the house itself, which pays homage to the country. ‘The house is called Vitacura, which is the neighbourhood I grew up in,’ says Camila. ‘As this is my second home, I felt that the reminder would honour my childhood and be a statement that France is now my home as well.’
future plans‘ The idea was to build a house that will evolve as our family grows, so we’re planning to double its size and add extra rooms’