Made to measure

A bespoke library—crafted in collaboration with Borzalino—stands as an architectural focal point. Delabré bronze, warm ash wood, and veined red Lepanto marble lend timeless depth.

The spiral stair stands at the centre of the house and ties its two floors together. It makes one full turn from the terracotta floor to the landing, with a glass balustrade following the curve and light running beneath the treads.

Even the laundry is drawn to measure. A tall cupboard in fluted green panelling hides the washer and dryer, stacked, with a drying rail above them; under the window, an oak counter and a fireclay sink sit on dark stone.

A round table designed around a tree that was already standing there. The corten top opens out in petals, clear of the trunk on every side, and the legs gather in beneath it; the chairs and the bench came afterwards, to suit the table rather than the other way round.

A door of vertical timber slats, pivoting on a central hinge, that closes the corridor without shutting out the light — made to measure, like everything that had to fit under this roof.

A deck of dark steel hung above the living room, reached by a ladder from the landing. Its floor is a perforated grid, so light falls through it to the room below; up here, under the roof beams, there is room for two chairs and a book.

Every planter on the roof was made to measure in corten steel — circular, oval, square, long — and the screens were cut from sheet to a palm-frond pattern drawn for this project. Both came from the same hand, Massimo Cecconi’s. The steel was left to weather.

Fluted stone, ribbed walnut, leather-lined drawers, lit niches. Almost nothing in this house arrived in a box.