Robert Couturier's eye for scale, color, and material is just as appropriate for modern living as it would have been in the ancien régime he so favors. The ELLE DECOR A-List Titan's skill is such that a lifetime wouldn't be long enough for most to achieve it. "I think I was born designing," he says. "I had absolutely no inclination to do anything else." Even in geometry class, for which Couturier had a noted aptitude, his mind traveled to aesthetics. "At college, when everyone else was rendering a cube, I chose to render the coronation carriage of King Philip of Spain," he says. And now, after decades living in the United States, he has returned to the country that shaped his vision.
Couturier calls it destiny that the perfect summer place for him a 17th-century manor in Normandy, France, modest by the usual standards with just three bedrooms and a few surrounding acres-was in the same area as a former family home he knew as a child. "I only discovered after buying it that a house of my grandmother's was a few miles away," he says. It was an easy thing to missCouturier's grandmother had inherited the building from her father, but with only one daughter and several other residences between her and her husband, it made little sense to keep it. Couturier was five when he last visited.
The newly acquired abode is the crowning achievement of a decades-long career. Originally owned by a family of Huguenots before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes forced them to relocate, it is undeniably grand and yet still surprisingly livable.
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Denne historien er fra March 2024-utgaven av Elle Decor US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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MORE, PLEASE
Eric Hughes joins forces with Standard Architecture to transform two neighboring homes into a sprawling family compound.
SIZED TO FIT
Designer Nannette Brown reimagines a new-build apartment with unexpected depth, character, and texture.
Play It Cool
In balmy Texas, Ashe Leandro brings urbane style and a chill vibe to a home in a historic district.
Mic Drop
For former talk radio star Tom Joyner, Studio Roda creates an oceanfront pleasure pad with out-of-sight views and disco-era glamour.
EYE IN THE SKY
How do you cozy up a Manhattan high-rise? Call designers Hendricks Churchill.
THE JOY OF KØKKEN
In Brooklyn, a writer transforms her kitchen into a space of warmth and connection, blending personal memories with Scandinavian design.
CURTAIN RAISER
ELLE DECOR partners with designers Christine and John Gachot to refresh an iconic lounge at a New York institution, the Metropolitan Opera House.
The Empire Strikes Back - A 19th-century gem in Cambridge, Massachusetts, gets a tour-de-force restoration thanks to Frances Merrill of Reath Design.
Is it possible to simultaneously go back in time and leap forward? This was the challenge a couple set for themselves upon purchasing a salmon-pink 1869 house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from Longfellow House, the National Historic Site that served as George Washington's headquarters during the revolution. We loved all the beautiful old details of this house, the homeowner says.
Just Like That, But Cheaper. -One writer tried to replicate a classic ELLE DECOR interior in his apartment. Could he do it for $500?
It was all about the green curtains. In 2008, to my great surprise, I was offered a ninemonth fellowship based in New York City. I had lived there twice before, both times unsuccessfully, meaning I had failed to create any kind of significant social life, and so this was a chance not only to do research for my new novel, but also an opportunity to get things right. I swore I wouldn't let the city break me a third time.
And How! - Decorator Nick Olsen transforms a Sag Harbor home into a Hamptons retreat with an irreverent humor.
If you must go to the Hamptons, however-because it is devilishly good fun, after all-you may notice an apparently modest, low-slung cottage on Sag Harbor's Main Street and think, with a comfortable sort of feeling, Now that is how a house should look. Nestled amid the Botox bars, helipads, and club-staurants, it could almost set the sordid world aright both a rebuke and a solution to the chaos that surrounds it. A real home.