ASPIREDESIGNANDHOME.COM 49 48 SUMMER 2026 The living is arranged around the original fireplace. Sofa by Maison de Vacances; cushions by Casamance; armchair by GUBI; tables by MOGG. Painting and small sculptures by artist Nathalie Collange. Green vase by Clay212; rug by Nanimarquina. here is a concept in winemaking called terroir, the idea that a wine’s character is inseparable from the land that produced it — the climate, the soil, the stones beneath the vines. Tamper with it too aggressively, and you risk losing the thing that made it worth drinking in the first place. Interior designer Hélène Roux of Les Montagnardes appears to have taken this very notion to heart. When she and her partner came upon a farmhouse in Goult — a village of golden walls and cathedral calm tucked into the hills of the Luberon — that instinct was immediate. The mas dates from 1860, and what it has is presence — a stone shell worn smooth by time, a courtyard shaded by a centennial linden tree and the sort of stubborn, unshowy beauty that Provence does better than almost anywhere else. What it did not need was a redesign, but rather someone patient enough to listen. Roux, who designed the house for herself and her family, speaks of the project less as a creative endeavor than as an act of stewardship. “We wanted to preserve the spirit of the place,” she describes. “We didn’t want to undertake a major transformation.” Like the winemaker who works minimally in the cellar, her interventions are mostly invisible. The exterior of the house was barely touched. Original stone ceilings were left entirely intact. The approach is one of subtraction rather than addition, creating something that feels at once deeply rooted and effortlessly refined. The interiors open with a kitchen and dining room of uncommon serenity. A polished concrete floor in a color calibrated to match the existing Ménerbes stone — blended so precisely that the join between old and new nearly disappears — establishes the room’s soft yet radical logic. “The difference between the materials is now almost invisible because the colors are so close,” Roux explains, “creating this sense of unity.” T The courtyard-facing façade retains its original faded pink render, its imperfections worn with the ease of something that has never needed to prove itself. Shutters painted in a grey-blue shade comply with local PLU planning regulations. Bench by Carl Hansen & Søn; cushions by Maison de Vacances.