A sense of ADVENTURE

Pieces acquired from around the globe sit harmoniously with vernacular details in this Normandy home

- FREDERIC DUCOUT

With its distinctive brick. and flint walls and shuttered windows, this early 20th-century former fisherman's cottage really couldn't be anywhere e other than the Pays de Caux, as its architecture is so typical of the region's vernacular.

In fact, everything about the house and its locale is quintessentially French: this part of northern Normandy is closely associated with important artists and writers, from Maupassant and Victor Hugo to Claude Monet and his fellow Impressionists, many of whom painted the area's beaches and high chalk cliffs.

Step through the door, however, and you embark on a journey around the world: first to Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell's Charleston farmhouse, just across the Channel, and then on to Spain and Africa. At every turn another influence can be detected in either the decor or the collections on display, all of which have been gathered by the owners, antiques dealer Laurent Di Benedetto and his partner, Didier, a travel guide publisher.

Shields from Oceania stand alongside large wingback chairs covered in William Morris fabric, abstract canvases, and animal heads woven from wicker. There are lengths of coconut cloth picked up in California, carpets from Tunisia, and ceramics from Morocco.

In the little sitting room, the white-painted brick fireplace seems to have always stood opposite the Napoleon-style daybed and yet, it was only recently rebuilt from scratch.