Perfectly preserved Art Deco houses are thin on the ground, so when I saw the details of one gem of a hunting lodge in Poigny-la-Forêt, near Paris, I lost no time in writing to the agent to ask if I could photograph it. His response was quick and positive. I made a day trip to visit the masterpiece, and it was well worth the journey. It opens a little-known and intriguing chapter of the history of 1930s French interior decoration and design.
The house, located in the middle of a forest, was designed by the almost unknown interior decorator, furniture designer and architect Pierre Petit. Born in 1900, he attended Ecole Boulle where he trained as a cabinetmaker. In the golden age of Parisian Art Deco in the 1920s, Petit worked for a firm specialising in creating and installing offices, shops and hotels, and designing store fronts and commercial interiors, but also creating furniture, conceiving schemes for stained-glass windows, lighting, wallpapers, fabrics, carpets, railings and signs. At the International Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925 he displayed his work in shops on the Alexandre III bridge next to that of other big names of the interwar avant-garde including Sonia Delaunay, René Joubert, René Lalique and Pierre Imans.
In the 1930s, Petit also started to work for the shoe company Willy, founded by Maurice Philbois, designing shops and store fronts to display the footwear. By coincidence, at the same time Philbois decided to build a villa in 1937, Petit was presenting an exhibition of his interiors, Salon de Pêche et Chasse, at the Paris International Exhibition. Philbois was immediately seduced by Petit’s work and signed him up to design his new house. The villa and hunting lodge in Poigny-la-Forêt, near Rambouillet, was the striking result of this collaboration.
Hunting was Maurice Philbois’s passion, and the sport provides motifs for the ornamentation both inside and outside the house. The exterior is reminiscent of a small modern château, made up of a series of dynamic shapes and geometric forms. It is an amalgamation of period styles from Art Deco and Neoclassicism to Functionalism, combining these aesthetics in an almost fantastical and surreal way.
While Petit himself was responsible for the layout of the house and most of its furniture, a number of artists and craftsmen were entrusted with the decoration. The grand foyer is dominated by curved staircase and large mural depicting the surrounding landscape, with the villa itself in the middle. A large bar and games room is located on the ground floor, and behind the glass-covered bar is are lighthearted reliefs on mythological and pastoral themes by the sculptor Jean-René Debarre.
The large living room on the first floor is an almost identical reproduction of the one Petit exhibited at the international exhibition in Paris, including a Carrara marble mosaic, a fireplace with a sculpture of a falcon by Georges Lucien Guyot (who also created the wild boars outside of the house) and stained-glass doors and mirrors created by Jean Joseph Kef Ray. The dramatic concrete staircase leads up to the second floor with study rooms and bedrooms with original furniture and ornate bathrooms. The colourful mosaic floors and walls were created by Mazzoli, and Jean Perzel and Gênet & Michon supplied the lighting.
The current owner bought the house in the 1980s without, apparently, realising how extraordinarily special it was. He kept all the interiors unaltered and now rents the house as a film and photo location. Since the last year, the villa has been on the market, and a new owner – hopefully one with taste for interwar glamour – has a chance to acquire it.
