La Grande Dame

An ode to 19th century French Shanghai sits quietly-walls of cream and symmetry welcoming an old friend home.

Inspired by French colonial chateaus in Shanghai, the home’s external features are striking. Large, matte-black window frames are accentuated by classic keystones, traditional European sconces lining the exterior walls. The external façade is adorned with contradictions-horizontal bands of stone wrapped around the structure in a uniform manner, interrupted every now and then by elegant Baroque curvature.

The external façade is adorned with contradictions-horizontal bands of stone wrapped around the structure in a uniform manner, interrupted every now and then by elegant Baroque curvature. Amidst clean, white lines, these concave forms create a quiet architectural tension-orderliness softened by graceful manipulation of classical orders.

In the rear façade, a tiered stone fountain anchors the garden with its old-world charm, the sprawling green lawn it rests on extending into a two-tiered garden: a gentle descent toward the pool, elevated above the lower lawn like a reflecting basin, its dark mosaic border contrasting sharply against soft green grass.

Suspended on near-invisible wires, dozens of individually hand-blown glass leaves and petals – some clear as ice, others gilded-are scattered through the double-height void as though caught mid-fall, tumbling in a frozen moment between the skylight and the floor.

A soft spiral of marble steps curls upward along the curved wall, reaching for the falling glass. The handrail crafted by La Forge (Paris) of dark bronze metal weaves a narrative of botanical forms-scrolling vines, unfurling leaves, and sinuous stems.

A clean, white, stone palette deliberately bleached of hard contrast, this room seems to exist in its own diffused, gentle light. An abstract vision of nature is hidden amongst swirls of brown and gold stone. Jade accents hang suspended in a crown of glass flowers, catching the light in fractals of seaweed green. A single, elegant green chair sits poised for the picture, and the curtains, a deep midnight teal pooling at the window, inject the moment with a shot of bold colour.

Delicate peonies and bare branches paint an 18th-century European fantasy of the Orient. The back wall features a teal-green chinoiserie. A leopard-print velvet settee sits center, its cushions drowned in crimson silk embroidery.

By day, this façade presents itself as a study in pale stone and classical composure – all horizontal banding, warm rustic yellow granite, and Baroque curves. By night, formidable stone recedes into a stout silhouette. Now, the interior amber light spills from within with an almost molten quality, illuminating the columns from behind and turns them into glowing sentinels. The pool transforms into a mirror for the entire lit façade, long warm ribbons of amber that appear to float between dark garden and darkening sky.