An exceptional Swiss chalet filled with a curated mix of contemporary pieces
A week before she first visited this chalet in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, its owner had coffee with Khaled, the late father of Lebanese interior designer Maria Ousseimi. ‘He got talking about what he looked for when he was buying a home,’ recounts the art collector and philanthropy adviser. ‘And he told me that the view was always more important than the interior space.’
The chalet, which had been on the market for some time, was pleasing on both counts – and offered a subterranean surprise. When she stepped into the building from the underground car park, the now owner was immediately beguiled by the huge mass of rock that juts out into the basement level. ‘For some reason, the Biblical quote “on this rock I will build my church” immediately came into my head,’ she recalls. ‘For me, it was a case of “on this rock, I shall build my home”. When I took the lift to the ground floor, I was blown away by the view. Everywhere you look is so beautiful. It was as if the house had been waiting for me.’
The chalet, however, was not without its quirks. It had been built using traditional log construction methods by its previous owner, who was a model-train fanatic. ‘It was designed around his train collection,’ she explains. ‘There were tracks running along the beams, and holes in the walls for trains to go through.’ Redecorating the interiors proved an opportunity for her to reconnect with Maria. The two women share a Lebanese heritage and met when they were at a boarding school in Geneva. Maria had the added advantage of knowing the Swiss Alps well, as her family had kept an apartment in Gstaad for the past 50 years: ‘It’s like home. Being from Lebanon, I’ve always felt it was a safe haven.’
A self-taught designer, she is best known for two projects in Beirut – the Liza restaurant and Lebanon’s only Relais & Châteaux property, the Hotel Albergo. ‘Maria knows how to create homes where people are happy,’ notes the owner. ‘She transcends fashions and the spaces that she creates are just as magical 10 years later. The Oriental touches she brings to her work were another reason I wanted to collaborate with her – to create something that would reflect my heritage.’
Little construction work was required, apart from the basement level being reconfigured. The owner wanted each level to show a different aspect of her personality and says, ‘My aim was to create a surprise on each floor.’ She is a keen art collector and has placed works by the likes of Gavin Turk, Rebecca Horn, and John Armleder in the chalet. Her big passion, however, is the art brut produced by patients at the Gugging psychiatric clinic in the Vienna suburbs, which she first discovered in the late 1980s. ‘It’s a pictorial art that is very intuitive, true and authentic,’ she explains. ‘There are no external influences. They didn’t look at magazines – they didn’t know who Andy Warhol was. Their art expresses raw emotions.’
To reflect that love of art, the basement level has been conceived as an installation. As you enter from the garage, a concrete path takes you past a wall adorned with dozens of Charlotte Perriand’s iconic ‘CP1’ lights towards the exposed rock face. Next to it, a Gianni Motti sculpture stands in the form of a signpost, with one arrow pointing to Success and the other to Failure.
The concept for the first floor was for it to be resolutely contemporary, with little colour. The quasi-Scandinavian look is a nod to the fact that the owner’s two daughters are half-Swedish. ‘I wanted the whole of my family to feel at home here,’ she explains. The pared-down aesthetic is far removed from Maria’s usual style. ‘I’m much more ornate,’ admits the interior designer. ‘I would naturally have filled it with carpets and things – but it was a very interesting exercise. It allowed me to veer from my comfort zone.’
The two women quickly agreed upon the immense cloud-like ceiling light by Frank Gehry and Piet Hein Eek’s reclaimed wood dining table. ‘I thought it was contemporary – but not too much,’ says Maria. Elsewhere, they introduced strong pieces, such as Frank Gehry’s ‘Wiggle’ chair, Moooi’s ‘Brave New World’ lamp and a Gerrit Rietveld prototype chair. Also striking is the wall sculpture in the form of a flock of birds by Palestinian artist Abdul Rahman Katanani.
The ground floor has a distinctly Middle Eastern vibe, with tables and chairs inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and Ottoman-inspired fabrics from Arjumand’s World in Milan. ‘Arjumand is a fictional Persian princess who travels the globe,’ Maria observes. ‘The textiles are usually based on old designs from different countries, and they’re just so chic.’
The room in the chalet where Maria came into her own was the carnotzet (traditionally, an area of the cellar used for entertaining). There, she let loose, mixing and matching and juxtaposing Indian-inspired archival textiles with Chinese bamboo chairs. Apart from the antler chandelier, there is little here that shouts ‘Swiss chalet’, but, for Maria, that’s not the point: ‘I just thought festive space. I don’t believe that, just because you’re in a chalet, you can’t do Oriental.’
The owner loves using the carnotzet to host dinners. Yet, for her, Maria’s best idea for the chalet is the cladding of the lift shaft in the sitting room with mirror glass: ‘The reflection brings the landscape, which is sublime, inside’
Maria Ousseimi: @mariaousseimi1
Stephan Julliard1/7The sitting room.
Stephan Julliard2/7The main bedroom.
Stephan Julliard3/7The curtains are in ‘Simoun’ linen from Jennifer Shorto, which has also been used to cover the bed base. Isamu Noguchi’s washi paper ‘Akari UF4-L10’ floor lamp stands on a ‘Moroccan Dream’ rug by Iwan Maktabi, beside one of a pair of leather and birch chairs designed by Bruno Mathsson in 1932. The Indian ink drawing to the right of the window is by Dutch artist Constant.
Stephan Julliard4/7Maria introduced the iron and glass door in the bathroom, and the custom-made concrete sinks, with Vola taps. The Charlotte Perriand ‘Berger’ stool is from Cassina.
Stephan Julliard5/7Leading off the open-plan sitting and dining room on the first floor, the balcony is the ideal spot to enjoy the uninterrupted views of the valley and mountains, which captivated the owner when she first viewed the chalet. The chair is Airborne’s ‘AA’, known as ‘Butterfly’ and designed in 1938.
Stephan Julliard6/7Beside the striking mass of exposed rock in the basement is the owner’s Success Failure signpost, by the Swiss-Italian artist Gianni Motti.
Stephan Julliard7/7
