Generally speaking, it’s people who move; buildings, on the other hand, are supposed to stay put. In Villers-sur-Mer, on France’s Normandy coast, however, the typical scenario has been turned upside down—twice. In this small town about five miles west of Deauville, you’ll find a chalet that was once a star of the Paris World’s Fair in 1867 and a prime example of early industrial prefabricated construction. After the fair, it was carefully dismantled and rebuilt by the sea. The building on the other side of the street, which is the subject of this story, followed in the same footsteps. Like its earlier counterpart, the house is similarly elevated with a sweeping view of the surrounding landscape. The building was the Madagascar Pavilion from the next World’s Fair in Paris, which took place in 1878. When it was in the French capital, this imposing three-story wooden house with its colonial-style wraparound verandas was intended to showcase the skills of Madagascar’s craftsmen; two years later, it was moved to Villers-sur-Mer and rebuilt as a vacation home in a slightly modified form. It reflects the enthusiasm for the construction techniques of the time; aesthetically, it is a prime example of the architectural eclecticism of that era, with exotic and European influences picturesquely combined.
A historic conversion embraces the vision of a modern vacation home
Baptiste Legué and Diletta Buchetti from the Paris-based studio Baptiste Legué took on the challenge of transforming this historical gem into a modern home while being determined to stay true to the charm and identity of the original. Their clients found a building that had a lot to offer on the outside, but the original interiors had been lost over the course of numerous adaptations followed by an unfortunate period of neglect. “We not only had to reimagine the entire structure of the building, but also replace the roof,” says Legué, as he explains the scale of the project. The goal was…