The stunning collaboration between Jacques Grange, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé

on the Normandy manor Château Gabriel was inspired by Marcel Proust’s

À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.  Marcel, who spent the summers in nearby

Cabourg,  is said to have visited the house…

Throughout the ground floor reception rooms, the walls are covered

by murals created by Paul Meriguet in homage to Monet’s Water Lilies…

Madeleine Castaing chair covered in pale pink velvet sprinkled with flowers,

“…reminiscent of buxom ballerinas in fringed tutus.”

The opulent overabundance of the Napoleon III period almost overwhelms the eye in the

grande salon. Grange calls it ” a blend of a Visconti film and the style Rothschild”

A photograph of Marcel Proust amidst an arrangement of Minton porcelain

and a vintage Baccarat crystal box. Saint Laurent named each of the  nine bedrooms

for characters in Proust’s novel. His own named after the cultivated and sensitive

Charles Swann…the pseudonym that the couturier used when he traveled incognito.

The black and beige marble floors extend from the main dining room into the smaller one…

French 19th century neo-gothic chairs surround an English mahogany table…

Lit by 19th century antique chandelier, 18th century Strasbourg cabbage…

Continuing the conversation of Little Augury here and bolstering my claim that the US cover of

The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Berg is more representative of the interiors…

and therefore better than the French cover…visit her and cast your vote…

All photos (except book):  House and Garden December 2005