Project Name: Cap Geckos

Location: Saint Jean Cap Ferrat

Architect: Pascal Goujon

Interior Designer: Pascal Goujon

Construction Company: Caserta Construction

Cap Geckos house can be defined as an open shelter, an umbrella between the front and the back, a visual passage from the garden pool to the sea. The project creates the missing land to be living on. Sitting on a plot with uncompromised views to the Mediterranean Sea but faced with extreme planning regulations that would not allow for the views to be obstructed. The property became an open shelter, a photo frame from the garden pool to the sea.

Two parallel stone walls supporting a reversed wing canopy, and glass, as minimally framed as possible – A structure dropped on a flat, square, granite plinth, binding indoor and outdoor spaces, front/interior/back, into one wide living space. FF&E choices were made with a desire to “shake the house down” a little – bringing in colours and soft curvy shapes, with among others, pieces from India Mahdavi, Campana brothers, and one off custom designs from Hubert Le Gall.

As much as the upper floor is about openness and light, the lower level is about privacy and shade. It is the bedrooms floor, all set into a stone wall parallel to the slope of the land and concealed behind a giant monolithic aluminium shutter. Shutters are a serious feature in the area, offering protection from the harsh morning Mediterranean Sun. Artist Stephane Cipre was commissioned to design a unique piece of several layers of aluminium, the façade as a canvas, the shutter as a “bas relief “.

The basement level houses the Garage and technical rooms and also serves as an entry way to the upper floors. From there came the positioning of the granite and glass staircase and the glass lift, creating a vertical flow of light all the way down from the garden level, an invitation to go up. Throughout the project the interiors of the house follow the simplicity of the project outlines, with the same desire to express refined materials and craftmanship with hi gloss Rosewood walls on the bedroom level, white Carrara marble carved in thin horizontal lines all throughout the vertical link between living spaces and glass panels for windows and partitions, set in a custom designed stainless-steel window framing.