First and foremost, Cristina Lozano and Lorenzo Castillo are friends. Their professional relationship – Lorenzo as one of Spain’s pre-eminent interior designers and Cristina as his client – is born out of this friendship and has led to their collaboration on several projects, with more in the pipeline. ‘We are like twin creative souls,’ says Lorenzo of Cristina. ‘We both have an uncontrollable passion for antiques and contemporary art, and for fashioning beauty.’ Naturally, Cristina’s house in Saint-Jean-de- Luz proved to be the perfect canvas for the pair to indulge their creative instincts to the full.
Growing up, Cristina spent much of her time in the town on the Atlantic seaboard of south-west France – her Basque heritage from her mother’s side, coursing through her veins. ‘My mother was born in Bilbao, but spent many years in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, particularly during the Spanish Civil War,’ she explains. ‘She now lives here, as does my sister, so even though my main home is in Madrid, my heart is here. These are my roots and I feel very connected to the area.’
The 19th-century oak chimneypiece and overmantel mirror – carved with shells, crabs, fish and marine miscellany – came from a Paris antiques shop on the Rive Gauche. It provides the focal point for a 1950s sofa in a Ralph Lauren floral, teamed with a marble coffee table. A Phillip Jeffries wallcovering is the background for lights and ceramic parrots, both from Gaztelur antiques in Arcangues, above a banquette with cushions in a mix of Gastón y Daniela fabrics. The stools, also in a Gastón y Daniela print, were designed by Lorenzo using a chestnut bark trellis handmade in Asturias, Spain.
Daniel Schafer
Family was the driving force behind her decision to upscale from a smaller holiday house in the town to this larger one, providing enough space to accommodate plenty of friends as well as her husband, Juan, and their three sons. ‘I love to entertain,’ says Cristina, who appears to be never happier than when the house is overflowing with guests. It is not unusual, she tells me, to find every one of the 17 beds, divided among seven bedrooms, occupied by family and friends.
A typical Basque baserri, with a half-timbered façade, gently sloping roofs, shuttered windows and an arched entrance portal, the house had been abandoned in the 1920s and was a wreck when Cristina first saw it. While she was toying with the idea of buying another, less challenging property nearby, Lorenzo came to call. He instantly recognised the potential of such ‘noble architecture’ and promised that together they would be able to create the perfect family house.