In the dining room, a bespoke solid oak table painted in a high-gloss ox-blood finish catches and reflects the light as it pours through the windows onto the mountain landscape beyond. Vintage Spanish dining chairs by Borge Mogensen surround the table, beneath Compass Brass pendants by Atelier de Troupe.
Martin Morrell
Above ground, the rooms in the older part of the chalet are flooded with bright mountain light. It is here that the full richness of Linda’s decorative scheme unfolds: bespoke joinery and furniture, layers of texture and pattern, and a palette that feels warm and considered rather than predictably rustic.
Yet even here, the project required more thought than first appearances suggested. As the designer spent more time with the family, the layout of the bedroom floor – which sits between the underground spaces below and the main living areas above – shifted significantly. The primary bedroom had originally been placed on the top floor, in the largest space with the finest views. But as it became clear how closely knit this family is, with the young children often ending up in their parents’ bed at night, that arrangement no longer made sense for how they actually lived. ‘They did not want the scale of the house to discourage that,’ Linda explains, and so the primary suite was moved down a floor. Tucking a bathroom, dressing room and study within it, while also fitting three separate children’s bedrooms each with their own bathroom, was, she admits, ‘a real challenge to unlock – but one we solved to everyone’s satisfaction.’
Another view of the dining room. The bespoke hand-knotted jute rug is by Anette Nix and the antique floor lamp with its raw silk shade is by A Shade Above.
Martin Morrell
The heart of the house is on the floor above, where the kitchen, dining room and living room merge into an open-plan layout that feels refreshing for a setting like this. Linda’s desire to depart from convention without losing the warmth and rootedness of the place emerges in unexpected details, such as the tumbled travertine and marble floor in the kitchen. ‘It is a bold choice that would feel harsh in a minimal white interior,’ she says, ‘but surrounded by so much warmth from the wood, it reads as grounded and considered.’ That same confidence carries through to the living area, where a bespoke tenmoku-glazed tiled fireplace makes a striking statement, softened by the enveloping presence of timber all around.
For a family that spends so much of its life in motion, this chalet needed to offer something that no hotel, however fine, could provide. ‘From arriving below ground level and gradually emerging upwards, you genuinely feel as though you are floating above the valley,’ Linda says. That sense of ascent is perhaps what makes this place so singular: a refuge that reveals itself slowly, and feels more like home each time.