Beautiful French homeware: one couple and seven Provençal homes

Times

01-05-2025

The architect Alain Meylan and his wife, Liliana, an interior designer, didn't mean to move to Provence, let alone renovate a series of houses. In fact, Alain's style — modern and minimalist, with plenty of cantilevering and glass — would seem at odds with the Provençal vernacular. But they were seduced by the possibilities of restoring dilapidated, centuries-old buildings and turning them into their own light-filled iterations of the traditional 'mas' country house, then filling them with art and pieces by local artisans.
It was their passion for riding that brought the couple to the Alpilles. Alain first bought a holiday home with stables near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. When a large neighbouring property and then a mill that was falling down came up for sale, they made an offer on each and to their surprise wound up buying both. 'Suddenly, instead of a weekend hobby we were looking at a life-changing project,' says Liliana, who for a while ran an interiors boutique. 'But it was too special to miss: the opportunity to work together on these ancient places, to give back their life and restore their souls. It was a dream.'
They moved into their holiday home full time, and then opened the first property, Le Mas de Chabran, just before Covid, offering guests anything from B&B to complete hotel service. Today they have six properties, ranging from five to eight bedrooms, with two more coming in the next year. The latest, Le Mas de Castillone, is a 400-year-old former school turned into a ravishing seven-bedroom house in the village of Paradou, which has a picture-perfect boulangerie, a fromagerie and a bistro frequented by Hugh Grant as well as many well-heeled Parisian weekenders (the Avignon TGV station is 35 minutes away).
The two-storey stone villa is reached through hand-wrought iron gates via a garden of lemons, figs and pomegranates with a towering plane tree in the centre. 'It takes ten people to link arms around the trunk,' Alain says. 'When we saw the tree we were sold.'
The exterior of the house feels untouched, although the appearance is deceiving. 'We knocked down walls and we raised the ceilings,' Liliana says.
Alain's Atelier K Geneva practice is now run by his son, who specialises in high-end contemporary spaces. He is unusual, his father says, 'in that he works from the inside out: rather than create a dramatic shell, he really thinks of what a house will be like to live in'; both 'want to avoid the limitations of the old [small windows, low ceilings, no air-con] without erasing the past'. The result here is at once dramatic and warm and inviting, characterised by original oak beams, wide stretches of glass, walls textured with clay plaster mixed with raw earth, and statement art.
In the double-height living room — once a low, dirt-floor barn — are two striking paintings by the local artist Jules Milhau, both on the theme of 'Black Sarah', the patron saint of the Roma people, who lived in the nearby Camargue region. 'The pieces need to feel like part of a story,' Liliana says. 'It isn't just copy and paste.'
The couple used antique doorways from India not merely because the new spaces needed really big doors; in the 16th century, this region of France traded cotton with India, Liliana explains, and the Indian patterns in the wood became common Provençal motifs. Plates on the wall, designed by the ceramicist Florence Bamberger, depict the great copper sculpture in the garden: a piece by Jean-Louis Toutain called Joy of Life that she found at a brocante in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. 'All the items are things I really love, so I find they all work together,' Liliana says.
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The duo, who have designed 30 other houses for private clients in the region, also arrange studio visits to their featured artists, many of whom moved to the region during the pandemic. Guests can make their own ceramics with Florence Lucchini, who created the candleholders throughout the house. 'Part of our passion,' Liliana says, 'is bringing them to a wider stage.'
She will also take guests to shop at her favourite brocantes, where they often leave with a suitcase full of finds. Although some purchase significantly more than that — three have bought fully furnished houses, which the couple rent out together with their own properties.
As well as the houses, for those inclined towards wellness, there's a tennis court and a 19m infinity pool and, from May, a gym, sauna and steam room. There is also access to a private trainer, a marvellous facial masseur and a coach to help you conquer the vicious cycling tour up Mont Ventoux (with a backup van, just in case). For some of the guests, including Glastonbury headliners, the couple even fix helicopter day trips to St Tropez. But when you can go and have lunch in Eygalières — another town that looks like a film set, with a shuttered patisserie and an old man puttering past in a red open-top tractor — or have a private tour of the nearby Bamford-owned Château Léoube vineyards, why bother?
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'Often people make a lot of plans before they come, and then as soon as they get here they cancel them,' Liliana says. Lying in the hand-hammered copper roll-top bath while downstairs the private chef prepares a fireside dinner of sea bass carpaccio, to be served with champagne, I can see their point.
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Details Le Mas de Castillone costs from €28,000 a week for 14 guests, domainesdechabran.com