00:03Hi everyone, I'm Peter Marino, the architect who supervised the renovation of Coco Chanel's La
00:10Pauze. I designed the landscape of the property. This villa was designed by Mademoiselle Chanel
00:19herself. She was a local architect to do the construction drawings and the design is very
00:24much based on the convent in which she grew up. It's here in Roquebrune, the south of France,
00:33with extraordinary views of the Mediterranean. This project lasted five years. I had the first
00:42year spent doing the design of the restoration of the house and the gardens. The second year was
00:46really all about getting permissions and then we had three years of construction. The garden now is
00:52precisely as I imagined it. Very free brushstrokes of color and the olive trees restored to health
01:01and large areas of green that have become almost part of abstract paintings. It's very very close
01:08to my imagination and completely my vision. I began the creative process here by looking at historical
01:17photographs. There's quite a reserve in the Chanel archive. The process began, oh my god, that's what
01:23it looked like when she was alive. It was interesting because from 35 to 37 to 39 there were changements
01:31that she made every few years, but also for the feeling, the sentiment of the house and the life that
01:36was there. The photos are great to see who she had as guests, Salvador Dali, Piena Stravinsky. The whole history
01:43was fascinating for me. I think it has a very strong link to her philosophy of fashion. This house with
01:51its
01:51convent like simple three arches, absolutely without any decoration, no trim, no stucco milieu, nothing, is extremely
02:03like the modernity of her dresses. I think philosophically it's completely the same. Not only
02:11do you have the very toughness of these arches, I mean it's a very strict modernity, obviously based on
02:17the convent in which she grew up. I tried to make the gardens feel somewhat textured as the cloths that
02:24she invented for the simplicity of her designs. I think the architecture and the garden very very very
02:31strongly reflect her fashion sensibility.
02:38What Chanel got really intrinsically was this has absolutely nothing to do with Paris. This is a life apart.
02:46This is a life the south of France. This is a life with the Duke of Westminster. And I appreciate
02:52that about
02:53her. In the south of France you have to respect its native feeling. I think this one does it to
02:59the max.
03:00The gardens feel kind of sculptural. You know Paris, she was always into camellias and leaves.
03:05She particularly said she liked leaves that moved and flowers that moved. Here it was more about
03:10sculptural forms and plants that thrived on heat and dryness. So she was really big on lavender and
03:17liked the spring bloom of irises. So many of the views were blocked by trees that had grown
03:23inordinately large and that weren't native. So the process of eliminating what blocked the views,
03:29putting trees where you feel nature might have planted them themselves. The olive trees had a
03:36pestilence and you couldn't put new ones in. So what we did is we had to reorganize ones from the
03:41property
03:42in a way that would look good. You couldn't really bring any new ones in. And they're looking much healthier
03:47than when
03:47the property was first purchased. We took out certain trees that were not at all native, certain eucalyptus
03:53and things that really didn't belong. Because we were trying for a genuine south of France look
03:59that would have been there in the 30s when Chanel came. As you know, it was a depression.
04:04People weren't spending lavishly on anything. So it had to be somewhat minimal.
04:09She did put some of the cypresses in, which we gathered together in clusters. I'm a cluster-mounding
04:15person. I'm not into freestanding. The great fun and to show you her kind of love and appreciation
04:22of gardens was the olive tree and the path to the front door, which she didn't dream of moving.
04:28Originally in the courtyard there was a huge olive tree that she built the house around. And that says a
04:33lot to me.
04:33Sometimes when I get new sites from new clients and they go, of course you've got to move all the
04:37trees.
04:38And they go, of course you've got to get another architect.
04:44In the south of France what's great about it is the courtyard with the sun is hot, but there's lodges
04:50all around
04:50which cool it so the direct sun never goes into the room. Very well designed by her.
04:57The glass doors were a later invention. When she first had the house, the first two years they weren't there.
05:02And she added them because I think some of the breezes from the sea got rather strong.
05:06But they are in later photos in her lifetime. Because it was all open at the original.
05:11And here she liked things that were more rigid and sculptural like the wonderful monstera cacti in the lobby.
05:18Which became my favorite plant in the whole world when we started doing this.
05:21I bought a giant one, taller than you and me. And it's sitting in my office. It's hilarious.
05:26It's like an eleven foot cactus. The terrace extension came when the doors came.
05:31Because, you know, every year or two she would add things like everyone does with the house.
05:35It was originally just here and then she extended it out there.
05:40Owners after her extended the terrace double the size, which I thought was a really bad scale.
05:46And we removed the large extension of the terrace. And they planned, if you can believe it, in very grand
05:53style stairs that went down to the road.
05:55Which we immediately removed.
05:58The garden furniture is completely modern. I found that furniture from the garden in the 1930s is a bit rickety
06:05and lusted.
06:06So it's all modern.
06:08Remember, our photographs from the period in the archives are black and white.
06:12That's a little bit of me that I allowed myself to do.
06:15Saying, listen, Mademoiselle Chanel, I don't know what colors you might have used, but I'm going to bring a little
06:21bit of my own into this project.
06:24There was a tennis court in that because she did play tennis to stay in shape.
06:28It's one of my favorite sports. I play doubles. I'm a little ancient for singles, so I do doubles.
06:41My style of landscape design is not typically French, where things would be very organized and all on an axis.
06:48It's not typically English, where you would have a lawn with beautifully placed trees and that's all.
06:53As an American, I actually feel I have an American aesthetic, which is a combination of very naturalistic planting,
07:00mixed with rigorous axes and paths that take you on a certain journey.
07:06And I call that American landscape design, and funnily enough, I feel I've had a little influence here in that
07:13direction.
07:14La Pausa, it's a wonderful name. I think the name really conveys what this place does to you as an
07:21artist.
07:22Don't all of us need a pause in life to create something?
07:26My imagination of how a day might have been spent in the 1930s, I'm going to assume that everybody had
07:33a very grasse matinée,
07:35and certainly didn't get up too early. You had breakfast in your room.
07:39I think that people did a lot of reading at this property. I think in the afternoon people might have
07:46played tennis.
07:47And I think you could have gone and taken a walk to the ocean and gone swimming.
07:53I think it was quite a healthy lifestyle, but also rigorously intellectual.
07:57I could see Mademoiselle Chanel recommending to me three books to read before I went to sleep.
08:02I could imagine hearing new piano concertos by Stravinsky before dinner.
08:08I could imagine quite jolly singing after dinner.
08:13People looked so blessedly happy in the photos.
08:16You can only be that happy when you're not worried about something else.
08:20This is a place where it's very odd. You're not worried about something else when you're here.
08:25And I don't know too many places on earth you could say that.
08:32You can only have two books.
08:32I'm afraid you're making a mentee go that the que Marg Ramadan êČȘâŹksi.
08:33I'm sure it's a pretty «ìŽì€a-R.'"
08:33You're absolutely checking.
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