Summer has a way of revealing a more intimate self: through the books we bring with us, the songs we can’t stop playing, the landscapes we long to discover, the little finds we don’t need but can’t resist… Each week, we’ll ask one of our star designers to share the rituals, inspirations, and places that shape their ideal summer — their own Paradise Found. First up is the wonderfully imaginative Charlotte Biltgen.
What is your summer refuge?
For the past ten years, I have spent my summers with my family in a fishing village lost in the north of Brazil. Ten years ago, we built a tropical house there, completely open to an exuberant, tree-filled landscape that spills into the interior and private spaces, imposing its soothing presence.
Do you return every year, or do you prefer to change horizons?
This annual immersion in a dense and utterly disorienting natural environment allows me to experience moments of freedom far removed from the Parisian microcosm. I love Brazil—it inspires me and accompanies me.
“I nourish my mind with an unreal and untamed nature; I leave behind a cerebral mode of being and embrace a more sensory one.”
What is one address you almost hesitate to share?
Near our village lies the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site: a landscape of white sand dunes and lagoons that fill with water after the rainy season. It is a lunar, otherworldly, and absolutely breathtaking place.
What journey do you still dream of taking?
Italy. I have already been there a thousand times and always long to return, again and again. I would love to discover Sicily, which I have never visited, and explore its Baroque architecture.
In which room would you most like to spend a night?
The San Domenico Palace in Taormina, Italy.
Which architect, interior designer, or artist would you most like to be invited by?
Hubert Le Gall, whose world of poetry and whimsy I admire greatly.
What would you recommend reading this summer?
L’Ascension by Amélie de Bourbon Parme, which paints a dazzling portrait of Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III, at the heart of an Italian Renaissance that utterly enchants me.
What music is the soundtrack to your summer?
Tive Razão by Seu Jorge.
What landscape would you like to wake up to every morning for the rest of your life?
I love change too much; I prefer to live a life of contrasts.
And finally, what is your most precious summer memory?
Kitesurfing excursions with my children.
