PHOTOS: See inside US designer's comfortable French chateau

I am an autodidact and my greatest joy is teaching myself new things about my craft. I was extremely lucky early in my career to get some very prestigious clients, including celebrities and royals. 

My previous career in marketing helped me differentiate myself from other designers; while most designers at the time were focused on how a room looked, I espoused the belief that even the world’s most beautiful room is not successful if it is not also comfortable.

When I was named to Architectural Digest’s AD100 after only a few years as a working designer, the magazine specifically mentioned my “revolutionary” view that comfort was essential to good design. 

Shortly after that I was quoted as saying, “Comfort first, comfort last, comfort always!” I believed it then, and I continue to feel that it is essential today.

As a designer, my philosophy has evolved, and I now understand that there are many elements at play in creating a space that is truly comfortable and inviting; many of them are not immediately evident when you see a photo of a space that I have designed. 

Scale, proportion, use of colours, and materials are all essential to creating a comfortable space.

Bringing practicality into the home

When I approach a project, I think hard about how the space is going to be used.

For example, twenty-five years ago I was designing a kitchen/family room for one of the world’s most famous singers, who had one daughter already and another child on the way, and I suggested that we use outdoor fabric for the upholstery. 

At the time, outdoor fabrics consisted mostly of thick awning fabric, so that’s what we used to cover a banquette.

Fortunately, over the years, there have been many breakthroughs in new materials so that there is now a whole category of performance fabrics, and I am proud to have been one of the pioneers in bringing practicality into the home. 

Let’s face it, no one is really comfortable in a room if they have to worry about spilling something that will ruin fabric or a rug.

A love letter to France

How does all this fit with my life over the past three decades in France and America? A friend once commented to me, “Your homes in California always feel like they should be in France, while your homes in France always feel like they are in California.” 

To expand upon that notion, a magazine once described my style as “European elegance infused with California casual,” and I think that really does summarize how I design. To me it is the best of both worlds – having your cake and eating it, too!

I wanted to write this book as a love letter to my adopted country of France, both the architectural and cultural richness of Paris, and, equally importantly, the spectacular countryside outside of the big cities that the casual visitor to France too often bypasses.

It is the combination of both that makes France so extraordinary and explains why it is the most visited country in the world.

I feel inordinately blessed by the opportunities I have had: the good fortune to explore intimately another country and its culture and marry it with my own. In the end, we each become an amalgam of all the people and experiences with which we surround ourselves.

I cannot imagine the person I would be today had I not moved to France all those years ago. If you were to ask me why France is so important to me, it would be difficult to pick out any single thing – it is the totality of the beauty, the culture, the history.

Confessions of a Château-holic

The Château de la Chevallerie is located in the northernmost section of the Loire Valley. In fact, part of the property is actually in the lush region of Normandy, just outside the town of Alençon, famous for its lace. 

The chateau is smaller than many of the other places I had seen, but the moment I walked in, I thought, this is where I want to live. It was elegant and beautiful, but so were many of the other places I had seen.

Beyond those elements, it also had the easygoing charm of the best country houses. It was exactly what I had been looking for.

The chateau consists of one three-story structure with two wings at ninety-degree angles that delineate the courtyard. 

Because the left wing was added in the eighteenth century, it is not exactly symmetrical with the wing on the opposite side, which incorporates the seventeenth- century stables and farm buildings. 

Later, to hide the lack of symmetry, a pair of six-story towers were added, with domes inspired by the one at the cathedral of Alençon. 

This trick works surprisingly well on the front façade, but from the rear, you can clearly see that the towers are not positioned evenly in relation to the chateau.

What surprised me was the quality of construction throughout, especially the fine panelling and floors, rare in a chateau of smaller scale. 

For example, parquet de Versailles had been installed on all three floors, whereas in most chateaux, the second floor is laid with point de Hongrie (a type of chevron parquet) or even wooden planks, and the top floor with terracotta tiles. 

Beautiful boiseries (wood panelling) had been installed in every room, not just the public rooms on the first floor. I had never seen so many extraordinary details throughout an entire chateau.