Magazine Article

Annick's House: The Aesthetic of a Style. By M. Hekkers.

Annick came out of her Sandorini blue front door wearing a stripped burgundy jelabee which fell over her body like silk, ending at a pair of bear feet standing on a layer of a Marmara, white stone floor. Holding a dog at arm’s length and the front door in the other, she encouraged me to come in and join the little paradise Annick has been gradually creating for the past seventeen years.

Over Greek coffee presented in a glazed, blue, pottery coffee set, Annick happily sat and told the story that had brought her to this magnificent place; the old elementary school of Peyia village in the town of Paphos that had now been turned into a one and only household, bearing treasures of past roads and distinctions of unique antique restorations and Greek, Asian Style.

“I found this place by pure coincidence. I signed the contract the very same day I visited the then abandoned house and moved in the following day. At the time, the place was in a chaos and immense work had to be done in order to make it look like something, but, I knew what I was doing. I had pictures in my mind; it was just a matter of bringing them to reality”.

When Annick was a child she had travelled back and forth from India, turkey, Greece and Belgium. Having a father as an ambassador she had the opportunity to be in touch with oriental identities and grew to love their extremes of colours, minimalist style and originality. “For me, it was as equally important to integrate the Cypriot culture and style as it was to stigmatize the house with individualities that I had encountered and treasured in my life”.

Each independent room is found on a multiple of levels and has been given a name depending on the location and style Annick has given to them; The Balcony, The Summer House, the Apothiki (Greek work for storeroom).

The main building houses the main living room, the library, kitchen, main bathroom and main bedroom. This area maintains a similar style throughout although it is one that is quite tricky to pin point.

“The area where I spend most of my time has to be aesthetically appealing but functional at the same time. The bulk works are that of intensive quality and long life expiry dates. The rest was left to my own creativity. I wanted to play more with fabrics, colours and materials; I find it’s the details that make a difference”.

Once away from the entrance courtyard that is furnished with wooden benches and spread out white canvas umbrellas, the first step indoors leads you to the main living room which has been sprinkled with Indian fabrics and khilims that drape above the heights of a stone floor that carries the weight of wooden furniture that have been restored by Annick herself.

In the corner stands a traditional Cypriot fire place that holds a stone plate as a sill which in its turn holds pictures, sea shells, antique printing coupons and dried flowers. The mixture of baize and oriental colours and that of metal ornaments along with pottery and wood brings quite a unique combination of style, quite cleverly fitted together to bring a final touch of multi-stylism!

The kitchen is one of a peasant that has been brought into a technologically advanced and country side looking one. Still bearing white stone floors, the benches are made out of clear pine wood divided by a seventy by seventy centimetre stone sink and the emplacement of a five eyed ancient kitchen stove look alike. Up above are wooden shelves either fixed to the wall or dangling from the ceilings separately bearing hooks which have traditional sausages, garlic loafs and stainless steel kitchen utensils hanging upon them, dangling by the side of miniature Pithary pots and wooden chopping boards bunked above them. The back of this room leads you to a set of steps that take you to a back exit and a storage room built under the grounds of the kitchen. Here, every seasonal change will predict what the shelves will be enriched with. May it be home made chutneys and pickles, collected sea salt or sun dried tomatoes and olives ready to be treated, you will find them labelled and exposed on a hand made wooden shelf circumfusing the whole side wall.

Up above, the library fills an entire wall of books, accommodated by a CD collection and the office area. So as not to spoil the space with technological appliances, the computer is scarcely placed within wooden frames and cupboards, the music system is delicately placed between books while paintings of both Annick’s husband and father in law, who happens to be a surrealist, hang upon the walls. Attached to the library sits the bathroom which has a green tint to it as opposed to the blues, baizes and earthy colours that have captured the building up to now. Bamboo shoots fill the corners of the bathroom with a small exit leading you back to the courtyard you had originally walked into.

As you walk through a one man archway, steps lead you to the main bedroom made out of wood from head to toe. Wooden floors, cupboards, window frames, chests and bed seize you with a hollow echo and a smell of wood polish you could potentially find in old Irish pubs. The bedroom has a double glassed door which opens onto an internal courtyard covered by the greenery of a grapevine and livened up with clay pots of time, lavender, jasmine and orchids. The courtyard being divided on two levels holds two sitting areas decorated with cushions made of chequered blue and white cushions tied back to metal chairs and in-built stone sofas.

Moving north, a quaint door to the side takes you to an independent guest bedroom accommodated with an in-built plaster bed highlighted with oriental, multicoloured and flowery designed tiles which lay at the dividing point between the bed and floor. Accompanied is a Cypriot wooden desk, a former bathroom make-up desk with distinctive wooden towel hangers on its side and a single draw bellow the desk top.
“This is probably the room I have spent the less time and energy on, but I have something in mind. For many years I have wanted to set up a loom that I have carefully stored away. It’s a big and beautiful wooden piece, the carpets and fabrics that can be made on it are priceless. I can picture myself in my old age spending my time on it. This room is just right, that’s the next project I’ll be working on”.

Returning back to the courtyard, a circular stair case takes you to the highest point of the household. From the tallest room in the house, which is now accommodated as an apartment with an independent kitchen and bathroom, one can walk out onto the balcony and view the sea at a distance, the small town of Paphos to the right, the Akamas peninsula to the left and the lively village atmosphere a couple of metres below, thus excusing the name Annick has given to this area; “The Balcony”. Inside the apartment stands a double four poster bed still maintaining its flowery decorations engraved in the metal work and white linen curtains draping from the top right down to the floor. Once more, wooden cupboards, kitchen tables and chairs are scattered around the room this time presenting a differentiated and new style of ornaments; art nouveau lamps and mosaic made mirrors.

“This part of the house was finished off in 2001 although I can’t help myself from making additional changes from time to time. Living in a warm country such as Cyprus and having adapted to the local rhythm that persists during the summer, the afternoon siesta which lasts from one till four has no better accompaniment than a swimming pool”.

The house finds itself between windy and narrow roads in the centre of the village and according to Annick the placement of a pool wasn’t one of the easiest tasks. Being a customer who knew what she wanted, the pool had to be one of a deep blue sea colour and had to find its appropriate setting. On an upper level which gives one the opportunity to view the internal courtyards of the residence and the spectacular view on its right hand side, the pool is placed between Carob, olive and lemon trees, accompanied by a vegetable garden and wooden sun beds. The stone floors paved around the pool gives a warm feeling to your feet when it has spent the day in the sun light while the blue skies unravels the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere yet right in the centre of a small town.

“I find it quite appealing to go for a swim and then go to the vegetable garden to collect what I will have for supper! I grow my own aubergines, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. As the food lover that I am I have also incorporated spices for final touches to my home made dishes.” As Annick spoke to me, she held her hand up and dispersed smells of lavender, sage, parsley and phenyl. “Cyprus has the perfect climate to accommodate me with my sense of smell. Near the sea front I’ve found wild spinach, corn flowers, mushrooms and snails during the winter”.

With the accomplishment of the pool came along another project. That of a summer house which lies to the one side of the pool. “I felt like being a little more extravagant, whereas I was pretty conservative in the colours and styles used in the rest of the house, I decided to make this arrangement a little more “funky”. I dressed the bathroom walls with Egyptian designs made out of red, green and white mosaics making the small bathroom look Moroccan while still keeping an ancient touch to it. I played with bamboo roller blinds and brought in one off pieces of furniture with a red ochre tiled floor. I can say it was one of the projects I enjoyed doing most”.

Annick had always been good with her hands. Although her family had originally pressured her to go into business studies, she finally took up what she liked when she came to Cyprus. She expresses a love for Cyprus and its heritages and plays with the traditional and fundamental uses of objects. Upon the walls you can find old bread making boards hung and used as shelves, cheeses making woven baskets used as pen holders, napkin holders and dried flower “vases”. Pithari pots emerge in all corners of the house and traditional Cypriot wardrobes engraved with the local flowery handiwork are loaded with TV sets to disguise the “atrocity”, as Annick says, of technological appliances. Even the doors of these wardrobes were transformed into glass ones to expose the local dinner dishes she had purchased from various local pottery makers who made multicoloured glazed kitchen wear out of clay.

Annick is quite caught up in the old style households and the ancient methods of restoring these but she has nothing against combining modern and old. “We live up to different standards nowadays and I don’t think many people would be willing to live as our ancestors did. Mixing the old and the new is a style in itself and a much more complex one as well. Today’s fashion has a tendency to turn towards electric and bright colours with rigid shaping and much less detail and this can be hard to combine with older styles. I guess what is important is to follow your personal style and pick out specific things you enjoy during each change within the fashion world. What’s for sure is that things keep coming back and antiquities have always been something to have. Whether you appreciate and enjoy their history and aesthetic is an entirely different chapter. To me, the mere sense of touch and optical queries these kinds can bring to you and your household is one to treasure and one I will never stop hunting for”.

Around three years ago Annick and her husband took their fashion further. In the same village and a five minute walk away from home, the couple have opened their own restoration and antique shop. The shop is founded in an old traditional stone house with each room accommodating their appropriate utensils. The bedroom holds beds, chests and four poster beds for children, the kitchen supplies wooden chopping boards, spice draws and traditional cooking books, the living room is crowded with wanders that were once in use; old school maps, bread boards, sofas and lamps.

“At first I only indulged in providing personal satisfaction with my ideas and handy work. Today, I realise that I can give people ideas and provide them with what some may think is the impossible. I try and preserve cultural heritages, whether Cypriot or foreign and I believe this isn’t seldom done through antiquities. Cooking books, old techniques and languages all compensate for ancient treasures. I find it important for antiquities to be treated the way they should be and I hope that I can give this feeling to others”.