Chic Summer Habitats

It’s vacation time in France. And the French embrace les vacances with their usual attention to style. Dreaming of sunny days, blond beaches and Mediterranean blues—from aquamarine to navy—French designers keep coming up with inspiring ideas for chic summer habitats.

Designed in 1923–28 by French Modernist architect Robert Mallet-Stevens for cultural philanthropists Vicomte Charles de Noailles and his wife Marie-Laure, the Villa Noailles was an avant-garde holiday domain. The viscount commissioned “a little house that would be interesting to live in to take advantage of the sun” overlooking the Mediterranean and the seacoast town of Hyères. After many extensions, the elegant concrete-and-glass residence emerged as a national landmark—60 rooms, an early indoor swimming pool, gym, squash court and vast open-air terraces. Giacometti, Cocteau, Picasso and Dalí came to visit; Pierre Chareau, Eileen Gray and Piet Mondrian helped with the decoration; Gabriel Guévrékian was the author of the Cubist garden, and Man Ray shot his famed Surrealist film Les Mystères du Château de Dé on the premises.

Owned by the city since 1973, the extraordinary villa now hosts cultural exhibitions, none more apt than Design Parade (through Sept 30, 2012). The 7th edition will spotlight a solo show in the swimming-pool room with 127 pieces by François Azambourg, including a Bugatti chair and a Chèvre table in shimmering aquagreen. Azambourg heads the jury choosing this year’s Grand Prix winner from the ten design contestants whose work is also on show. www.villanoailles-hyeres.com

VIA’s top picks

More innovative projects for laid-back living were tapped for the 2011–2012 VIA Labels, awarded in May by the government-and-industry- sponsored design promotion group. Straight to a vacation home’s bathroom, or a welcome addition to a guest room, Jean-Michel Policar’s EASY compact-column hand basin for Lido elegantly fulfills its function—a mirrored top section opens to reveal generous shelf space and LED lighting, and the basin sports a towel rail. The seat and puffy bubbled back of Eléonore Nalet’s ultra-comfy Serpentine armchair are clad in a turquoise indoor/outdoor, flame resistant, waterproof fabric.

Two VIA winners offer options for romantic night lighting: an ingenious sprinkling of miniature transparent LEDs twinkle in six nuances of white and two levels of intensity on Ludovic Clément d’Armont’s starry Semeur d’Etoiles (star sower) ceiling, while the energy economizing Smoon Cage lamp for Beau&Bien by Sylvie Maréchal is a versatile suspension, table or standing lamp in the shape of a covered birdcage—the covering comes in translucent polyethylene or deluxe Limoges porcelain. www.via.fr

Saluting the blues

Some of the most eye-catching pieces in Roche Bobois’s new Autumn/Winter collection would look right at home in sunny summer interiors from Saint-Tropez to Malibu. Take French designer René Bouchara’s glamorous Diapo dining table, whose extra-clear glass top is supported by three central laminated-glass legs in transparent sky blue and cloud white. There’s more transparent color in Fred Rieffel’s circular glass-topped Circus end table, whose standing glass supports come in a riot of colors from ocean blue to yellow, violet and red. In turquoise and sky blue shades, Cédric Ragot’s swirling Sismic coffee table and stool in lacquered polyester resin seem destined to star poolside. www.roche-bobois.com

WA.DE.BE. Designers have dreamed up an irresistible Granny collection of armchairs, side chairs and hammock-like rocking chairs whose natural solidwood structure supports crocheted cordage seats handmade by real French grannies, who are given part of the profits. New for summer 2012: a Granny chair in weather-resistant solid Iroko wood, dressed sailor-style with a navy-and-white-striped cordage seat. www.wadebe.com

Warm and festive

If you can’t get to the south of France, you can bring it to your dining table with Gien’s new Provence faience service, whose charming motifs include a small sailing port, a Provençal market, olive groves, lemon trees and lavender fields. The amazing Provence array ranges from canapé and dinner plates and a gift box of dessert plates to teapots, coffee cups, goblets, candy dishes, baking casseroles, trays, coasters, place mats and dish towels—and a shopping tote to carry them in. Wonderful hostess gifts all. www.gien.com

“The challenge was to make the Tour Montparnasse desirable,” says French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance of his new interiors for the Ciel de Paris, the skyscraper’s 56th-floor rooftop restaurant with the city’s most extensive panoramic view. “I wanted to make a warm, convivial and festive ambiance,” he adds, “and a place where out-of-town visitors would come with their fiancées as a first stop.”

He succeeded, and it was no mean feat: The 1973 tower tops every Parisian poll as the most detested building in town, a jarring vertical sore thumb in a lovely horizontal landscape. The new decor is soothing and sophisticated, echoing the curved shape of the room with a striking amber-toned bar. Cozy round banquettes and armchairs in sumptuous camel leather are set off against walls painted a taupe gray warmed up with a touch of magenta.

Another tour de force—confirming the designer’s status as one of the hottest talents in town—are the 275 satellite-shaped ceiling lights centered with cleverly angled mirrors that reflect fractions of the stunning exterior view. “At night, the aureoles of light reflected in the windows create a fusion between inside and out that gives the impression of racing through the Paris skies,” he explains. “It’s an invitation to float in space in the comfort of a cocoon.” New, too, is chef Christophe Marchais’s bar-and-bistrot menu, served nonstop from 8 am to 11 pm. www.cieldeparis.com

Originally published in the July/August issue of France Today