An old yet contemporary chalet

Simple shapes and refined details: Dorothée Simon’s renovation breathes new life into an old building in Haute-Savoie

An old lodge in the Evian mountains, in Haute-Savoie, to be converted into a large chalet. With this brief, French interior designer Dorothée Simon and her team renovated the dwelling from top to bottom, lending each room its own delightful character. The large chalet now boasts some twenty rooms arranged over four floors, including a spacious lounge, as well as nine bedrooms and a number of bathrooms. “One of the things

I am most interested in is working with materials,” explains Dorothée Simon in an interview with Ville&Casali. “Here, the wood exudes warmth and is coherent with its surroundings, while other solutions add surprising details.” Dorothée Simon has added large panoramic windows to this welcoming retreat. The original wooden cladding of the façade was taken down and refitted to accommodate huge panels of glass that offer breathtaking panoramic views. To reproduce the original ochre tone, the cladding of the ground floor wall uses lime mixed with sand from the Ain region of France.

Inside, the open-plan lounge, dining room and kitchen takes advantage of the pre-existing height and square footage. The mezzanines and glass railings play further with the transparency of the home, while the perforated coating applied to some glazed parts of the house creates a calm softness. The neutral but vivid colour palette underpins the inspiration of each piece, while the textured fabrics of the curtains and upholstery add depth to the space.