He French style It is a risky but always accurate decision. «This house had to be a pavilion for the new honeymoon period in his life, with the older children,» says architect Bobby Mcalpine of the contemporary abode he designed for his clients, the European antiquarian Susan Roland and her husband, Jim, in St. Francisville, Louisiana. «It is not intended to house everyone, but to feed and entertain everyone.»
Located on a property of 182 hectares, on the edge of a lake, the wooden house, glass and steel only has a bedroom, but its numerous interior and exterior meeting spaces are wide and welcoming. When they come to visit, the six children of the Roland and their grandchildren, as well as the guests from outside the city, stay in one of the other houses of the complex, which have a total of 16 bedrooms and are located on a short walk or in golf cart. «We think: we are approaching the retirement age … Where do we want to be?» Susan says about his first conversations about the construction of a new main residence. «It's absolutely right here, in this lake.»
The Rolands were fans of Mcalpine's work for a long time, and their company was one of the great patron of Fireside Antiques, Susan's antique store in Baton Rouge, so the decision to contact him for the project was easy. Although the characteristic style of the architect, a sublime mixture of high pediments and natural materials, was what initially attracted the couple, Mcalpine immediately realized that this project required a somewhat new approach, a French style only.
The house had to be a glass box, overlooking everywhere, «he says of his unusually low vision, which incorporated a parapet roof:» I wanted it to be almost like a modern river boat with blinds on the water, because it is in a very southern context, with mossy trees. Glass place and a wall of contraventas abroad.
Once the architectural concept, Susan and her daughter, the interior designer and co -ownership of Fireside, Laura Roland, were responsible for designing the interiors to the French style. During the two years that planning lasted, Susan spoke with Laura, who worked in his company's exhibition hall in Baton Rouge, about the different elements of the list. During their quarterly trips to Europe they discovered some key pieces, such as a monumental nineteenth -century oak library for the kitchen and a couple of limestone shelves of the 18th century for the room and the dining room porch, which inspired much of what the rest of the rooms would populate. «Finding two of them was a miracle,» says Susan referring to the rare chimney coatings of the French region of Cognac, where, at the bottom of a quarry, they also found 40 containers of almost identical limestone for the porches, courtyards and the study: «There are shells of clams, mollusks and all those wonderful fossils of small creatures that were in the stone.»