Casa di Legna

Casa di Legna sits above Santa Giulia Bay in the south of Corsica, a short drive from Porto-Vecchio. This is the part of the island people come for: a run of beaches within twenty minutes of each other, Palombaggia, Santa Giulia, Cala Rossa and Rondinara, each with its own character, some busy with Italian families under the pines, others empty enough to plant a towel and see nobody. The water changes from blue to bluer depending which one you pick. Sardinia and the La Maddalena archipelago are close enough to reach by chartered boat for the day. The roads are winding and narrow, so a small car helps.

The house began as a 1960s stone building and was reimagined by Gilles Terrazzoni, a Corsican architect, working with the designer Angélique Buisson. What they made is clad in wood and built around the boulders already on the site, so it seems to come up out of the landscape rather than sit on it. Huge accordion shutters fold back to frame the sea from nearly every room, blurring the line between inside and out. The materials are kept simple, stone, linen, clay and sun-bleached wood, with modern furniture alongside primitive, handmade pieces. Six bedrooms each have their own bathroom and a shaded terrace. The infinity pool sits on a wooden deck above the water, and the garden is left wild, cork oaks for shade, rosemary bushes, a pétanque pitch. The house has been photographed for Elle Decoration.