THE INTERNATIONAL DESIGN AUTHORITY JANUARY 2018
THE DESIGNERS OF THE YEAR A PARADISE IN HAWAII A MINIMALIST MASTERPIECE IN BELGIUM plus NATE BERKUS SHARES HIS CALIFORNIA DREAM HOUSE
sacred grove
TOWERING CYPRESSES PUNCTUATE THE CURVING TERRACES OF A GARDEN, DESIGNED BY FERNANDO CARUNCHO, NEAR THE GREEK TOWN OF PORTO HELI. FOR DETAILS SEE RESOURCES.
Garden guru Fernando Caruncho cultivates an ancient attitude at an estate on the Aegean Sea TEXT BY
MITCHELL OWENS PEPE GÓMEZ-ACEBO
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
F
rom the vantage point of a sailboat crossing the wine-dark Aegean Sea, the house surmounts its hill like a modern acropolis: noble, impassive, an assemblage of intersecting stony-faced geometries, blocky and sequestered here, open and airy there. One of the last projects by Ricardo Legorreta, the eminent Mexican modernist, and commissioned by an elegant Greek family that flits between their native country and London, the building crowns a steep, stately landscape that was cultivated not long ago by yet another contemporary virtuoso, Fernando Caruncho, a suave, soft-spoken Spaniard known for classical allusions informed by his youthful studies of Greek civilization. Stone walls radiate out from the house, knitting it into the acreage as it shapes languid terraces where cypresses of the darkest green rise like quills at regular intervals, towering above a plantation of pomegranates, figs, apples, oranges, and olives, what the garden guru calls “a paradise in the middle of a citadel.” Grape ivy drips down the walls; rosemary, santolina, and lavender perfume the salty air; and Festuca and ryegrass feather hard edges into velvety softness. A field of wheat underscores the pastoral ambience, spreading out like a breeze-rippled carpet of palest Attic gold. The ancients would have understood this Arcadia. Indeed, it is easy to imagine graceful figures clad in chitons and peploi strolling down the long, curving paths—paved with rocks left over from the excavation of the house’s foundation— as if navigating a labyrinth, down to the crescent of beach below. “This is a dreamer’s place,” Caruncho quietly explains, “very open yet very mysterious.”
ABOVE THE LATE ARCHITECT RICARDO LEGORRETA DESIGNED THE PROPERTY’S HOUSE. LEFT SINUOUS PATHS LEAD FROM THE HOUSE TO THE SEA.
ARCH DI G E S T. CO M
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