An 17th century chateau at the base of a medieval village in the Haute-Alpes of Provence, La Gonette has a fascinating history. An aristocratic estate and the home of the Gonette family, it was requisitioned as a hospital during the French Revolution, and later became a convent. Abandoned for many years, and badly damaged by fire, La Gonette became known as ‘The Sleeping Beauty’. The walled gardens grew wild, and the stone walls crumbled as the centuries passed.
In the 1990s, La Gonette was purchased and restored by the famed English interior designer Robert Kime and his wife Helen Nicholl. A classicist and historian, inveterate traveller and insatiable collector, Robert brought his deep knowledge of architecture, archaeology and the decorative arts to the restoration and furnishing of La Gonette. He was always drawn to objects, fabrics and curiosities that told a story, or that were the result of an encounter on his travels. He scavenged the bazaars of Istanbul, the markets of Cairo, the antique markets of France and the villages of India for inspiration. A pattern he spied on a woman’s head scarf on a bus ride in Turkey became the motif for one of his fabrics. Syrian marquetry and fragments of 17th French linen inspired other designs.
Decorator for King Charles and Queen Camilla, Tory Burch, the Duke of Beaufort, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and many other clients all over the world, Robert created hundreds of highly original yet timeless interiors over a career spanning six decades.
Christopher Gibbs of House & Garden wrote of Robert: ‘The beautiful and surprising always lurk in the Kime labyrinth: the rare, the charming, battered beauties, all ingredients that might make rooms dance and smile. Textiles, often copied from antique fragments and documents and made anew in Anatolian villages, or by the handful of English craftsmen able to work to Robert's standards, and a team of well-tutored acolytes, made possible a flow of unfamiliar, always lovely materials, destined for a London market.
Many of Robert’s beloved objects and pieces of furniture remain at La Gonette and the idiosyncratic poetry of his style pervades the house and gardens.
I don't know how you describe romance really. But some objects just have it. They just have something that makes them more than themselves. - Robert Kime
Since 2023, La Gonette has been owned by the writer Alice Nelson and her husband.
