A walk through our garden
One of the major elements which drew us to renting our house in Lacoste was the huge land around it, both Raphael and myself grew up in the countryside with plenty of space to get lost in play in....and we really wanted the same thing for Louis. The village houses within the heart of Lacoste are so beautiful and unique but by living in the village itself you usually have to sacrifice outdoor space.
What we hadn't realised on the first viewing and what we have been delightfully discovering since moving in, is that the garden is scattered with beautiful stone sculpture, covered in 30 years of moss they sometimes appear to have emerged from the ground. We asked our landlord, a charismatic Lacostois whose family moved here 50 years ago from Barcelona and he confided that during the 70's when Bernard Pfriems Lacoste School of the Arts was running - there would be many students who couldn't ship their pieces home and so they were adopted by the family who own our house. So there are an abundance of finished and some half-finished sculptures in the garden and I just love them.
Under Pfriem's direction, many notable artists came to Lacoste to teach including Benny Andrews, Denis Brihat, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Douglas Duncan, Nene Humphrey, Gjon Mili, and Jean-Pierre Sudre, among others. The poet, Gustaf Sobin, also taught poetry to students at The Lacoste School of the Arts during the 70's, and now his son Gabriel a sculptor is our neighbour.
I feel so incredibly lucky to be living in this beautiful village which inspired so many artists over the years .
One plant that seems to thrive here is the succulent, here they grow wild between the roof tiles of the cabanon
I can't wait to use this table come summer - I imagine the tree will provide wonderful shade in the heat of July.
The Family who own our house are Masons by profession and they built the house themselves - just before the front door they have inscribed the family initials - it reminds me of the rough scrawling of lovers initials in tree trunks - I just love it!
