An 18th-century house on the wild Brittany coast restored by the duo behind Antoinette Poisson
‘Our first impression of the house was that it’s very special,’ notes Jean-Baptiste Martin – paper conservator and co-founder of Parisian design studio Antoinette Poisson – of his Brittany house. ‘Port Louis is a very small town, but extremely well preserved. Unlike the big cities that were mostly destroyed during the war, you have all these 18th-century buildings that are still intact.’
One of these extraordinary houses is Maison Lescop. Built in 1740, the house was named after a merchant working for the French East India Company, one of many seafarers who built cottages along Brittany’s coastline. ‘We heard about this house through a client of ours in Paris. She came to talk to us in our rue Saint-Sabin shop and said, “You must visit Port Louis. There’s the most perfect house there that is going up for sale soon.”’ Mostly, Jean-Baptiste explains, she was ‘concerned about who would buy it. She didn’t want someone to paint everything white and rip out the floor.’
Intrigued, Jean-Baptiste and Antoinette Poisson co-founder Vincent Farelly took the three hour train from their base in Paris to visit the town that had once been the centre of France's decorative goods trade. Arriving in Port Louis, the paper conservators were met by a smart blue-shuttered Breton townhouse, its stone façade in keeping with the rest of the coastal town. ‘It’s not a big house, the rooms are small but charming. We were immediately impressed. It’s very rare to find an interior that’s still in the 18th-century aspect – and remained almost untouched since,' says Jean-Baptiste.
With the Covid-19 quarantine looming, Jean-Baptiste and Vincent wanted to visit the house one more time before committing to it. ‘The lockdown order began at midnight that night, so we raced down to Port Louis.’ There, they hashed out the details of the sale before retreating to their apartment in Paris. It wasn’t until late December that they could actually move in.
Above all, patience was the magic ingredient in this project. The duo were almost cellular in their level of detail and their excavation of the house’s history. ‘We didn’t start straight away, we took time to understand the house because we wanted to keep every original thing–we didn’t remove anything,’ he explains. This wasn’t just an exercise in staying faithful to the house’s past, but in finding cues for its future too: ‘We scratched little corners of the walls with a scalpel to reveal all the different layers of paint.’ In some places, it was four layers deep. ‘We really wanted to understand the story of the house. As different layers of paint appeared we learnt more and more about it. When we reached what we deemed was the first layer, we colour matched it as closely as we could, and painted the room in that colour,’ Jean-Baptiste details.
In the main salon, that bottom layer was a rich green. Building out the scheme from there, they ‘mixed in Antoinette Poisson wallpapers and textiles.’ For them, the house became a playground for their papers and patterns. ‘Where we didn’t feel our papers were suited properly, we hung them temporarily with pins. Even we want to change them sometimes!’
Most of the structural renovation was undertaken on the ground floor, where the duo were keen to reverse changes made to the house in the 1950s. ‘The people who lived here in that decade cared mostly about comfort it seems. They wanted a car and a boat garage to store their vehicles in the winter,’ explains Jean-Baptiste. Naturally, that garage had to go. ‘They had destroyed a room to create this garage, so we reconstructed the original wall, put back the original window, and replicated the wood panelling that we found in other rooms.’
Beyond the main house, there was a small outbuilding that had been used for garden storage for several years. ‘In the 18th century, it would have been the kitchen. There was a beautiful stone sink and fireplace in there that we knew we wanted to use.’ Together, Jean-Baptiste and Vincent restored the redundant space into a liveable one, creating a bedroom and little library with a fireplace: just two ‘very cosy’ rooms. The bedroom has been rendered in soft cream and ochre tones, pulled from the original ‘verdure' tapestry that inspired Antoinette Poisson’s ‘Joli Bois’.
One of the most special areas in the house is the ‘sea chapel’, a space no more than one square metre. It's just a tiny room, tucked behind the main entrance with a door leading down to the basement, but Jean-Baptiste and Vincent have created a theatrical backdrop. ‘It’s very common to find sea chapels in Brittany, all the old houses had places for families to go and pray for the safe return of the fishermen,' the pair explain. It's clear that the sea has influenced more than just the decoration, as Jean-Baptiste and Vincent have become enamoured by the coastal lifestyle too. ‘You can see the sea from the second floor of the house, and it’s just one street away from our front door. We now have friends with a boat, and are trying to learn more about fishing.'
Whilst the duo and design firm are still based in Paris, Port Louis has infiltrated every aspect of their lives. Earlier this year, the Antoinette Poisson team opened a second studio and workshop just a few moments away from Maison Lescop. ‘It’s an 18th-century space, but with quite a bit of work done in the 20th century,' they note. With a guest room, tea room and interiors shop, Port Liberté is the perfect destination for design lovers.
Originally intended as a weekend house, Maison Lescop calls to them like a siren, and they find themselves drawn to the Port Louis house for longer periods of time. ‘We are staying in Brittany more often. Now, some of the Antoinette Poisson team are even thinking about moving here full time,' laughs Jean-Baptiste.
Pictures extracted from ‘A Year in The French Style: Interiors & Entertaining by Antoinette Poisson’, published by Flammarion, available now.
Ruth Ribeaucourt1/19An Empire-period gouache engraving, 'Les Agréments de la Campagne' (The Charms of the Countryside), hangs on the hand painted wall.
Ruth Ribeaucourt2/19Louis XV style doors frame the entrance in to the sitting room.
Ruth Ribeaucourt3/19Affectionately nicknamed the ‘Room of Love', this space has taken its cues from the ornamental carving on the cornice above the alcove.
The room is the perfect size for 'relaxing, meditating and drawing', and where the majority of Antoinette Poisson's new designs are sketched out.
Ruth Ribeaucourt4/19The Chambre de l'Amour is the room Jean-Baptiste and Vincent spend the most time in. Soon, it will be transformed into an art studio. They have created a welcoming environment with the use of a Louis XVI banquette seat, upholstered in a printed linen fabric. The partition has been dressed in Antoinette Poisson's ‘Torrent’ pattern, inspired by an eighteenth century motif.
Ruth Ribeaucourt5/19An Etruscan red claw-foot bath sits boldly against a cool blue paper and lichen coloured paint.
Ruth Ribeaucourt6/19The wallpaper in this bathroom is inspired by Chinese wallpapers made in eighteenth century Canton. Originally hand-painted, this paper depicts an imaginary garden full of flowers, insects, birds and fruit.
Ruth Ribeaucourt7/19
Ruth Ribeaucourt8/19Maison Lescop's kitchen was undoubtedly the room that required the most attention. Previously the site of the garage, the kitchen has been transformed into a welcoming, warm room at the heart of the house.
Ruth Ribeaucourt9/19At nearly ten feet long, this vintage table forms the centrepiece of the kitchen.
Ruth Ribeaucourt10/19To avoid disruption in the entrance hall, Jean-Baptiste and Vincent have created a jib door into a small bathroom.
Ruth Ribeaucourt11/19
Ruth Ribeaucourt12/19A bespoke table by José Esteves provides a stage for several of the duo's objects. The legs are sculpted to resemble branches.
In the background, an eighteenth century screen is covered in domino paper and gouache prints of works by Boucher.
Ruth Ribeaucourt13/19
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Ruth Ribeaucourt15/19In the yellow bedroom, a vintage ikat is used as both a headboard and bedspread.
Ruth Ribeaucourt16/19The playroom is papered in an indienne motif called ‘Mignonette’, inspired by an eighteenth-century domino paper from Pierre Bousquet’s collection. Hung in the centre of the wood panelling, the pattern is off set by a warm yellow, created by Antoinette Poisson for Resource Paints. The bed is in the Louis XVI-style.
Ruth Ribeaucourt17/19In the outbuilding, Jean-Baptiste and Vincent have transformed a cold space into a cosy bedroom. Louis XIII-style chairs and a verdure tapestry bring warmth to the neutral toned palette. The floor is covered in traditional Breton tiles in variegated pink.
Ruth Ribeaucourt18/19.jpg)
19/19‘A Year in The French Style: Interiors & Entertaining by Antoinette Poisson’, published by Flammarion, is available now.
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