At the height of the French Alps, near the village of Megeve, architect Lionel Jadot has designed and built the stunning Alpine Cabin. This cabin mirrors the beauty of its mountainous surroundings by perfectly blending natural materials, primarily stone and wood, in its exterior design.
This breathtaking cabin is nestled high up in the mountains themselves, giving guests and dwellers a clear view of Mont Blanc on the distant horizon. The new cabin has been restored from an already existing structure made almost entirely of natural, local wood. Rather than feeling like a mere cabin in the stereotypical sense, where one might stay for only a few days and feel a cold draft most days, this stunning structure was created with the intention of balancing its surrounding environment in a more idyllic, long term way.
now, the updated cabin is equipped with roofed carports, chimneys that warm the home and give off an old fashioned (but safe) smoke that creates a wooded aroma and contrasts against the crisp, white landscape. There is also an access ramp that makes the cabin safe and simple for any visitor to enter, but this feature is make of bamboo instead of wood for durability and strength. Overall, the exterior of the cabin resembles a lovely Christmas scene.
There’s a lot more to this house, however, than meets the eye. Besides being an adorable looking winter cabin retreat, this building is actually also an important rehabilitation project. This is because design teams made sustainability and ecology in the natural space an absolute top priority while they built and restored the cabin. Professionals were specifically requested by the homeowner to updated the cabin, originally built in 1870, in a way that preserves and respects the history of the place, rather than just abolishing it and replacing it with something new and out of place.
This special renovation took two years to complete. This is partially because teams had to heartily winterize the dilapidated older structure and reinvent it in more environmentally and stylistically efficient ways. This required installation of a new roof, new floors, and new walls. Space was reorganized in the interior according to the homeowner’s wants and needs but builders ensured that the wood used in all aspects of the rebuild was local or harvested from the original structure. This ensured that the house fit in with the schemes and traditions seen in other houses in the area.
Inside, this wintery villa has two levels. While the ground floor features lovely guest bedrooms that are spaced to allow visitors free movement about the house, the master bedroom resides in a spacious upper loft. High ceilings there make the room feel opened almost right into the mountain range itself, particularly in combination with large, bright windows that continue all the way up to meet the ceiling. This stops the cabin from feeling dark and stuffy even on the shortest winter days.
In interesting contrast to the more traditional wooden log and stone foundation exterior that makes up this cabin, you’ll find a surprisingly unique interior decor scheme within its walls. Rather than looking even more like a Christmas hideaway inside, the decorative details reflect the adventures of the homeowner, telling an adventurous story through interior art! Furnishings and figures hailing from all different cultures and eras cover the walls and surfaces, harnessing beauty and stories from visits to Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Besides being garnered from all kinds of fantastic places, many of the pieces used to decorate the inside of the cabin are also garnered from antique sales and vintage stores. These two things in combination contrast beautifully with the wintery, wooden scene outside, giving the entire place a cheerful, warn, and intensely interesting atmosphere. Walking inside from the porch is like traveling from a nostalgic mountain home into a sophisticated New York loft!
The decor scheme isn’t the only thing that makes the cabin appear interestingly contrasted and wonderfully updated despite the strong remaining cabin atmosphere. Designers also installed solar power to the home, placing discreet but powerful panels on the roof to make it state of the art and energy efficient.
Photographs by Nuevo Estilo
