After 4 years of work, the mythical Cala di Volpe hotel, on the Costa Smeralda, in Sardinia, welcomes its visitors with more brilliance than ever. A hotspot of the 60s and 70s, adored by Prince Karim Aga Khan, it was a mythical meeting place for the jet-set. James Bond even stopped there in “The Spy Who Loved Me”. It is the symbol of the creative genius of Jacques Couëlle, the great architect who invented the “sculpture-houses”, which appear raw and buried in their environment but are extremely refined in form. Intimately associating nature and simple luxury, it perfectly corresponds to our time and its aspirations.

 

Moinard and Bétaille wanted to keep the soul of the place intact, and loved adapting to the empire of materials reigning supreme here: the powerfully sculpted plaster which reserves havens of freshness, the barely civilized wood which punctuates the structures and visual effect, the thick glass in color compositions that filters the unique light of the bay, the warm silky terracotta underfoot, the skillfully reinvented fabrics. The furniture, for the most part, was custom-designed and often mobilized local know-how.