Dressed for Success: An Enchanting, Maximalist Estate in the French Countryside

One doesn’t typically look to the sleepy French countryside for moments of show-offy high drama, but Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay might just be the exception. This 12th-century estate, an hour’s glide from Paris, conceals an arcade, a cinema and a karaoke bar within its honey-hued stone exterior.

It’s exactly where you’d hope to find yourself on a sun-drenched summer afternoon, three drinks deep and ready to put that GCSE French to good use by belting Joe le Taxi after a quick paddle on the boating lake. The former monastery is full of such surprises (a mountain of pommes frites served on a silver tower being another), though perhaps what’s most surprising is the ease with which Cordélia de Castellane, creative director at Dior Maison, has left her mark on the country pile, which had sat in disrepair for years until its renovation by the Paris Society in 2023.

Spanning some 75 hectares, the estate is the stylistic lovechild of Hogwarts and Soho Farmhouse, with ancient features tempered by elaborate textile wallpaper for a dab of pastoral maximalism. Founded by Cistercian monks in 1118, the abbey’s humble origins were thoroughly overwritten in the 18th century by Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild, who reimagined it as her summer home: a theatre for grand-scale entertaining. Her former bedroom – the Suite de la Baronne – is a Sofia Coppola fever dream, with toile de Jouy fabrics, a bounty of fresh blooms and pretty pastels contrasted against intricately carved oak boiserie.

The Baroness took piano lessons from Chopin, kept company with Balzac, Manet and Henri Rousseau, and enlisted Victor Hugo to design the flower motif that is visible throughout the estate today – cementing Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay as a storied gathering place for the era’s most formidable minds. Its rebirth marks another cultural crossover: fashion houses dipping their finely dressed toes into the hospitality pool.

“Fashion and hospitality share a common language. Both are about creating an atmosphere, a sense of emotion and a lasting impression,” de Castellane tells Broadsheet. “At Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay, I approached the interiors much like a silhouette, layering textures, patterns and references.”

This approach is evident throughout the hotel’s public spaces, where the building’s monastic bones are softened by de Castellane’s baroque sensibilities. Under the vaulted ceilings of the hotel’s James’ Bar, William Morris wallpaper, floral fabrics and unique flea-market finds punctuate thick stone columns and dark wooden panelling. The heritage status (during World War II the surrounding woodlands were used to hide the statues of Versailles; today the abbey is among the most protected sites in France) makes its bedrooms endearingly peculiar – each unique in layout and strictly devoid of air conditioning to preserve the medieval stone.

In the English manor-inspired lounge, oversized tartan and flashes of leopard print sit confidently beside a gold-gilded oratory, which still houses the abbey’s original organ. This time-travelling alchemy makes the cavernous estate feel lived-in and intimate.

That spirit is summoned in no small part thanks to the litany of artisans de Castellane rallied for the project – Bernardaud for porcelain, Maison Pierre Frey for fabrics, Maison Laval for the joinery. “It’s about attention to detail, a certain refinement, and an intuitive sense of balance,” she says. “I like spaces to feel composed but never rigid, elegant but always welcoming – places where you immediately feel at ease, yet where every element has been thoughtfully chosen.”

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