Peter Marino on Restoring the Gardens of Coco Chanel's La Pausa

A House Modeled on a Convent

Marino stresses that the villa was designed by Mademoiselle Chanel herself. A local architect produced the construction drawings, but the design, he says, is closely based on the convent where she grew up. The site overlooks the Mediterranean, and Marino describes the views as extraordinary.

The project took five years. Marino spent the first year designing the restoration of the house and gardens. The second year went almost entirely to obtaining permissions. Construction took the remaining three years. He says the finished garden is "precisely as I imagined it," with free brushstrokes of color, olive trees restored to health, and large areas of green that have become "almost part of abstract paintings." He calls the result very close to his imagination and completely his vision.

Starting From the Archive

Marino began with historical photographs, and he says the Chanel archives hold a large collection of them. The images showed what the property looked like during Chanel's lifetime. They also showed that she kept changing it: Marino points to differences between 1935, 1937, and 1939, as she altered things every few years.

The photographs mattered to him for more than the physical layout. He used them to understand the feeling of the house and the life lived there. They show who her guests were, including Salvador Dalí and Stravinsky, and Marino says he found this whole history fascinating.

The Architecture as an Expression of Her Fashion

Marino believes the house has a strong link to Chanel's philosophy of fashion. He points to the three convent-like arches, which have no decoration at all: no trim, no stucco, no moulding. He compares them to the modernity of her dresses and says that philosophically they are "completely the same." In his view the arches have a toughness and a strict modernity that trace back to the convent of her childhood.

He tried to carry this into the landscape. He wanted the gardens to feel textured in the way the fabrics she used for her simple designs were textured. In his view, both the architecture and the garden strongly reflect her fashion sensibility.

A Life Apart From Paris

Marino thinks Chanel understood that La Pausa had nothing to do with Paris. In his paraphrase of her outlook, this was a separate life in the south of France, a life with the Duke of Westminster, and he says he admires that about her. He believes that in the south of France you have to respect the region's native character, and he thinks this property does so "to the max."

He contrasts her taste in the two settings. In Paris, he says, she favored camellias and foliage, and she said she particularly liked leaves and flowers that moved. At La Pausa the emphasis was on sculptural forms and plants that thrive in heat and dryness. She was especially fond of lavender and of the spring bloom of irises.

Clearing the Views and Working With Constraints

Much of the restoration involved removing what had built up over the decades. Many views were blocked by trees that had grown far too large, and many of those trees were not native. Marino's approach was to remove whatever blocked the views and to place trees where he felt nature might have planted them on its own.

The olive trees were a particular challenge. A pest or disease had affected them, and new olive trees could not be brought onto the property. The team rearranged existing trees from elsewhere on the site so that they looked good in their new positions. Marino reports that the trees are much healthier now than when the property was purchased.

The team also removed trees that were not native at all, including some eucalyptus. The goal, he says, was a genuine south of France look of the kind that would have existed in the 1930s, when Chanel arrived. He adds that this was the Depression era, when people were not spending lavishly, so the garden had to be somewhat minimal. Chanel herself had planted some cypresses. Marino gathered these into clusters, explaining that he prefers clustering and mounding to freestanding trees.

Building Around the Trees

For Marino, the clearest sign of Chanel's love of gardens is how she treated existing trees. She would not consider moving the olive tree along the path to the front door. The courtyard originally held a huge olive tree, and she built the house around it. He says this tells him a lot. He contrasts it with new clients who assume every tree on a site must be moved. His reply to them, he jokes, is that they will need another architect.

He also praises her design of the courtyard. The sun there is hot, but the surrounding covered structures cool it, so direct sun never reaches the rooms. He calls this very well designed.

Changes Over Time: Glass Doors and the Terrace

The glass doors were not there originally. For the first two years the house was completely open. Marino thinks Chanel added the doors because the sea breezes became rather strong. Since the doors appear in later photographs taken during her lifetime, they were kept.

Marino says the terrace was extended at the same time as the doors were added, as part of her habit of adding something every year or two. Later owners then doubled the terrace in size. Marino considered this a very bad scale, so the team removed that large extension. Those owners had also planned grand stairs running down to the road, which Marino says the team removed immediately.

Where Marino Added His Own Touch

Some choices were deliberately not historical. The garden furniture is entirely modern, because Marino found 1930s garden furniture rickety and rusted. The period photographs in the archives are all in black and white, so the original colors are unknown. Marino treats this as room for his own contribution. As he puts it, he told himself that since he doesn't know what colors Chanel might have used, he would bring a little of his own into the project.

He also mentions the tennis court. Chanel played tennis to stay in shape. Marino says it is one of his favorite sports too, though he now plays only doubles.

Sculptural Plants and a Giant Cactus

Marino says that at La Pausa Chanel liked plants that were more rigid and sculptural, such as the monstera and cacti in the lobby. These became his favorite plants during the project. He bought a giant one for his office, which he describes as roughly 11 feet tall and "hilarious."

An "American" Landscape Style

Marino places his own approach between two traditions. French landscape design is highly organized along axes. English design features a lawn with carefully placed trees. As an American, he says, his aesthetic combines very naturalistic planting with rigorous axes and paths that take visitors on a particular journey. He calls this American landscape design, and he believes he has nudged La Pausa a little in that direction.

What the Name Means, and Imagining Life There

Marino thinks the name La Pausa, "the pause," conveys what the place does to an artist. He asks whether all of us need a pause in life in order to create something.

He closes by imagining a day at the villa in the 1930s. He presents this explicitly as his own imagination:

A leisurely late morning (a grasse matinée), with breakfast in one's room.
Plenty of reading.
Tennis in the afternoon, perhaps a walk down to the sea and a swim.

He pictures a healthy but rigorously intellectual life. He imagines Chanel recommending three books to read before bed, hearing new piano pieces by Stravinsky before dinner, and cheerful singing afterward. The people in the photographs, he says, look so happy, and you can only be that happy when you aren't worried about something else. He ends by saying that at La Pausa you are not worried about anything else, and that he knows few places on earth of which that could be said.