THE JOURNAL


believe his eyes. “I thought, wow, there are magazines about interiors! I was amazed,” he says. More than three decades later, Deniot is a regular in most of those magazines. His


W architecture


on neo-classical style has earned him a place on top international design charts such as AD100 and Elle Decor’s A-List, and seen Forbes magazine herald him as "the Modern Master of French Interiors." Born in Paris, Deniot spent his childhood visiting


museums with his grandparents, making models of exotic interiors, building tree houses and “hanging out in abandoned houses making them feel like my own.” He also joined an after-school drama class, drawn by a fascination for the sets rather than the acting. Design had clearly chosen him so, having studied followed by


interior architecture and


product design at Paris’ Ecole Camondo, Deniot opened his eponymous studio in Paris’ 7th arrondissement just


hen the 12-year-old Jean-Louis Deniot came across a pile of interior design magazines in the school library, he could not


three months after graduating. He was 26. “If you start working for someone else, you become very influenced by them and that leaves an imprint on your creativity,” he says. “I had a blank canvas.” He does however cite legendary French designers


supremely sophisticated take


Henri Samuel and Alberto Pinto as major inspirations. Samuel’s grand salon with its red-orange upholstered walls, Empire woodwork and experimental contemporary furniture showed him the power of mixing classicism with the avant-garde, while Alberto Pinto’s


ability to reflect the myriad of different


countries he worked in made him determined to do the same. As he writes in his latest book, Destinations (Rizzoli), “very early on in my career, I made it a personal challenge to work in as many locations as possible.” The studio’s projects cover five continents, ranging


from tropical retreats in Miami, a waterfront villa in Italy, and a super-contemporary city apartment in Colombia, to bespoke new builds in India and a complete makeover of London’s Cambridge House club. Provisionally set to open in late 2024, this former


private members’ club will become one of the capital’s grandest hotels. Every one of these interiors is a reflection of its


home country but there is also something about Deniot’s work that is quintessentially French. The spaces he creates have a certain insouciance. They are both serene and sexy, relaxed but refined. “I have an international interest with a French translation,” he explains. That translation is evident in his own 1930s ‘get away’ home in Los Angeles that conjures both mid-century Hollywood glamour and Coco Chanel’s neo-medieval French villa; and in a home he has created in the most traditionally English of locations, Eaton Square, London. Deniot says he “treasures English architecture,” and


“would not normally alter the archetype of a protected building,” but because this project integrated three apartments in several buildings, they were able to demolish everything and create a symmetrical layout that


is unmistakeably French. “The English and


French floorplans generate very different flows,” he explains. “One separates the rooms into enclosed


OPPOSITE: Jean-Louis Deniot, who opened his own studio in Paris aged just 26, and whose latest monograph Destinations (Rizzoli) covers project across five continents. ABOVE: The designer’s Spanish-style 1930s home in Los Angeles celebrates his eclectic style, as well as embracing some old-Hollywood glamour – mixing antique, mid-20th-century and sculptural pieces with a pair of huge fishtail palms that stretch up to the ceiling


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© Stephan Julliard


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