Elliott Barnes is an American in Paris with impeccable design creds: He has a master’s in architecture and urbanism from Cornell, collaborated with the late great Andrée Putman for 16 years, and now runs his own firm, Elliott Barnes Interiors (EBI). His projects include the Ritz Carleton in Wolfsburg, Germany, scenery for a Benjamin Millepied ballet, and Daniel Rose’s new Paris restaurant. He’s known for his refined, sotto voce renditions of the good life. The version that recently caught our attention" A 19th-century Provençal-style seaside villa in Cannes that Barnes was enlisted to usher into the 21st century.
Photography by Francis Amiand courtesy of EBI, except where noted.

Above: The three-story house belongs to a European family who use it as a vacation retreat. Barnes notes that they had owned it for 25 years before he arrived, and says he was careful to “soak up the spirit of the place?and to not replicate a faux Provençal, but rather to embody its authenticity.” As an all-over refresh in keeping with the villa’s roots, he applied lime plaster to the walls and curved ceilings. “Lime plaster wasn’t in the house as I found it,” Barnes tells us, “but it’s a traditional technique used locally on plaster-rendered walls.” Shown here, a sitting area with a new wood fireplace and EBI armchairs in a polished cotton gabardine (known as the Toi & Moi Armchair; they’re available...