House of Beauty

Some houses are so unlike anything we’ve seen before, so extraordinarily beautiful, that they could, with a forgivable amount of hyperbole, be called works of art. 

UDesign show us around their latest creation.

Article by Vivion O’Kelly, Images courtesy of UDesign

A great hotel, a great building, a great art gallery, a great anything, makes us stop for a moment and reflect on its beauty, however that beauty might be expressed. It may be muted or spectacular, or it may be partially hidden behind an initial impression of ordinariness. No matter. It stops us in our tracks and makes us admire. Aesthetics is a universal value, and we have attempted to design a home that is universally beautiful, inside and out, in its architecture and in its interior design, and in everything one finds inside it. We think we have succeeded.

That is not to say that many other homes, designed by us and by other architects, are not exceptional in their aesthetics. What make this different is that we have designed every detail of it and what it contains as a complete and integrated work of art. We call it the House of Beauty.

The Entrance

The beauty starts at the entrance, naturally, but this is really a kind of hors d’oeuvre to the full-course interior. Our first view of the villa might have reminded us of Philip Johnson’s famous Glass House, but more liveable-in and vastly more user-friendly. If Johnson had designed his house in Marbella, he might well have added a swimming pool or two, and extended on both sides to accommodate a large family or owner who likes to entertain. 

We walk inside from a garden to a garden, which is to say, the garden is also inside the house, on both sides as one walks through the main entrance. The delightful difficulty here is not knowing exactly where the garden ends and the interior begins, because we designed it true to our concept of warm-weather residential architecture: inside/outside design. One is never quite sure exactly which is which.

We also designed it wide and long, so more rooms enjoy the views, and this is one of the key aspects of this symmetrical, largely transparent property. It is not immediately obvious that there is an upper pool behind the long white wall over the lower pool: they are really one, given that the water from the top pool cascades down into the one below. It would be more accurately described as a split-level pool. The palm trees on both sides help create the impression of an avenue to welcome us in from the garden, while the low, square island-like structures at each end are floating, illuminated seats around miniature ecosystems of giant bonsai trees and grass. 

But beautiful as the villa is under the clear light of day, the real magic happens at night, when the lights go on. Light is a medium by which art is created, and we have used it here as a kind of light installation, picking out aspects of the building and its immediate surroundings to create the ambiance we sought – warm, inviting and aesthetically satisfying.

The Lounge



The lounge may indeed be a place for lounging in, but it’s a lot more than that.  It’s a kind of multi-discipline art gallery, showing works on the walls, hanging from the ceiling, on the floor, in the garden, all around us, even in the pieces of furniture themselves, whose unique design qualifies them as sculpture. Look at the hanging lights and see an autumn breeze, look at the sofa and see a cuddly purple monster you can sink into, which is also a wonderful work of soft abstract sculpture, reminiscent of a piece by Claes Oldenburg. Look at the floating stairway cutting through the wall, splattered with giant blobs of gold and silver coloured mercury. And if we prefer our art as a more traditional single framed piece, there it is, right in the middle: a beautiful image by Tim Tadder from his latest collection”Black is a Colour”. 

The garden plan is difficult to describe in words, because it’s almost everywhere. It encroaches on the interior from all directions, and looking outwards, one sees sculptural animals inhabiting a space that could be inside or out. It has, of course, been designed that way, showing us that in this villa, the line between inside and out is beautifully blurred. The light here also works as sculpture, picking out the various pieces day and night as the natural light changes. 

The Dining Room

Open the door to the dining room and shut it behind you: no, in this home you move from one area to another without opening and shutting interior doors. And you also do it without really leaving the garden, because nature is all around you. 

The dining room table and chairs are low and minimalist, to take full advantage of the view through the window. All the spaces in this house are interactive, all constituting a bigger entity. Dining here, one has a view of the sea on one side and the illuminated garden on the other, and one dines here comfortably, on seats that are part armchair, part dining chair, ideally suited for long after-dinner conversation. 

The wall divider on one side looks like a cross between a Rorschach ink-blob test and the dried skin of some very exotic animal, but it is, in fact, four pieces of onyx mounted together. The effect is mesmerising. Facing this, on the other side, is a round painting that has been illuminated to work as a soft light source. The huge rock in the garden becomes an integral part of an overall muted design, the gorilla providing the splash of colour needed. 

The Kitchen

To the left of the dining space we have the top-end kitchen, which is a single, elegant entity in grained onyx. The Art Deco lamps fit in perfectly with the symmetry of the kitchen, as do the five armchair-style high stools. The long dark glass unit over the sink holds the cupboards, with the fridge and freezer behind the tall doors adjacent to it. 

But more than a kitchen, it extends back into a family living space with easy seating that all great kitchens should have. This seating comprises four armchairs around a table overlooking the entrance to the villa and the pool below, and an overhead lamp designed as a piece of neon art.  

Family Space

The family living area, as distinct from the more formal lounge, features grey sofas with blue-stemmed tables, this being the television area, and its overhead lighting helps serve as a space divider between it and the kitchen proper. The view across this space shows four large wine display cabinets, divided in the middle by an antique-framed modern painting. 

Looking back towards the kitchen from the family space, we can see that the entire area is visually one. This would not have been possible in a traditional kitchen, and works only because of its exquisite design. 

The owner of this luxury home will be a person who loves both entertaining and simply being with family and friends. It will also be an art lover, somebody who can appreciate the immense effort and creativity that has gone into every detail of the house and everything in it. It is a villa of great beauty filled with beauty, and more importantly, it is a home to be enjoyed. 

Architecture and Interior Design by UDesign: https://www.udesign.es/