“IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT THE EYE CAN TRAVEL”
A grand 18th-century apartment in Lyon, France, is reconfigured to make the most of its magnificent space
It’s really important that the eye can travel By IAN PHILLIPS Photographed by FELIX FOREST
The owner of this apartment in the heart of Lyon firmly believes in being decisive. “I’m an Aries,” declares the lively entrepreneur. “I need things to be clearly determined.” And when it comes to renovating homes, she makes up her mind about absolutely everything from the word go — the layout, the paint colours, the furniture. The result is greater efficiency. “Most things were in place just 24 hours after the building work was complete,” she says. “About the only thing missing was a rug that arrived three days late.” It didn’t take her long to decide to buy the apartment, either. It’s easy to see why. Located in a grand building dating from the 1770s, it is bathed in natural light and has sweeping views of the Rhône nearby. It also boasts 4.5-metre ceilings and at 350 square metres, is unusually large. “There are not many apartments like this,” notes Pierre Emmanuel Martin, who oversaw the decoration with his associate, Stéphane Garotin. “Most spaces in the city centre were divided up into smaller units over time.” Martin and Garotin head up the local firm, Maison Hand, which not only offers an interior design service but also runs a furniture showroom. Particularly striking is the lofty sitting room with its ornate gilded panelling and intricate mouldings. “One of the particularities of this part of Lyon,” explains Martin, “is that all the architectural elements were sculpted from wood rather than plaster.” Here, however, everything was in a pretty sorry state. Garland decorations were missing from several of the mirrors and much of the flooring was black. To restore the historical features, an artisan was brought in from the French equivalent of the National Trust. “She spent a month and a half more or less shut away in the room,” recalls the owner. With the help of the Lyon-based architect Michel Bessoud, the rest of the flat was largely reconfigured, with particular emphasis given to the creation of strong axes. “For me, it’s really important that the eye can travel,” the owner asserts. “I hate it when your vision is blocked.” In the sitting room, she opened up the wall to the right of the fireplace and also installed a new entrance to the master bedroom. When the door is open, it provides an uninterrupted view from the hallway to the windows overlooking the esplanade at the front of the apartment. Another major intervention was the creation of a mezzanine in the master suite, which actually slots in a space above the hallway. Bessoud reduced the latter’s ceiling height in order to accommodate it and devised a sculptural spiral staircase to access the bathroom it now houses. For the owner, the most important room in any apartment is the kitchen. “I love cooking and having people round,” she states. “I’m not big on sit-down dinners. I prefer to have buffets, where people come and go as they like.” Previously, it was housed in a dingy, windowless space off the sitting room. “It was a complete aberration,” she claims. She preferred to bring it to the front of the apartment and requested that all the appliances could be easily hidden behind folding ››
‹‹ wooden doors. “When they’re shut, the space looks more like a library,” she says. A similar laid-back feel was adopted for the rest of the decoration, which is deliberately contemporary. “If we’d used classical furniture in the sitting room, it would have made it too pompous,” she says. It would also not have been in keeping with her lifestyle. “When people come round, they sit on the carpet with a glass of champagne and a cigarette,” Martin says. One of Maison Hand’s signatures is a discreet, neutral palette, and here it proved particularly appropriate. “In the sitting room, we wanted to keep things toned down in deference to the elaborate panelling,” Martin says. “You don’t really need to add much.” Elsewhere, stronger hues can be found — in the owner’s young daughter’s room, where one wall has been painted blue, and in the allblack family room, with its striking Cédric Roulliat photo and House Doctor ceiling fixture. For Martin, the latter has a bit of a Harry Potter vibe. And maybe that’s what makes it so popular. “Everybody always fights to get a spot on the sofa,” recounts the owner. “It’s generally a case of fifirst come, first served!”