Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Property myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.HTSI editor Jo Ellison © Marili AndreThe happy coupling of a Danish design quartet and a palazzo in Puglia makes for one of the most pleasing interiors stories I’ve seen in a while. Our cover story this week takes us to Villa Colucci, recently unveiled after a lengthy restoration by Rolf and Mette Hay, of the design company Hay, and Barbara “Bibi” Husted Werner and her award-winning film director husband Martin Werner. Friends for the past eight years, the couples decided on this joint venture having co-purchased the villa in 2021. I personally cannot imagine any circumstance in which I would trust the outcome of such a plan, but between them the Hay-Werners have overseen a fabulous refurbishment. Both couples enjoy colour, and were keen to preserve the building’s more ancient charms, but they have also made bold choices in their choice of art and furniture. It manages both to look spectacular and retain a simple barefoot beauty. As Martin says: “We didn’t want it to look perfect, we wanted it to feel lived in.” Scarlett Conlon enjoys a first viewing of the property as they describe their “shared approach”.I’m intrigued to see what Patrick Seguin has stashed in his warehouse It sets the template for an issue in which we look at new ways to live luxuriously, especially in our property portfolio. If I coveted the chequered pool and floral-frescoed ceilings of Villa Colucci, I was positively green-eyed with envy on seeing the restorations going on in the Hebrides. A notoriously challenging place to build, the island region of west Scotland has a precipitously low population and an ever-dwindling supply of local talent. Now, a new generation of builders, interior designers and incomers are hoping to buck this trend. Charlotte Sinclair made the trip to the isles of Harris, Mull and Skye to meet the homeowners working with indigenous materials and techniques to preserve and evolve some of the cottages and buildings. The results are a gorgeous confluence of history, wood-clad comfort and majestic views. I defy you not to check out the local listings.The gallerist Patrick Seguin has been investing in 20th-century furniture since 1989, the year he opened his namesake gallery in Paris. Throughout the intervening decades he has built up one of the world’s most authoritative collections including, in particular, works by Jean Prouvé. Many of the pieces now decorate his apartment in the Marais where, he explains, they work in dialogue with art, design and architecture: “Our house is designed as a canvas for this interaction.” Though I’m no expert in any of these fields, the combination of a “creaky” 17th-century space, Alexander Calder sculptures and Prouvé’s Standard chairs makes for a rather delicious conversation. Seguin opens up his home for us to have a poke around – I’m now intrigued to see what he’s got stashed in his warehouse space in Nancy, not to mention the 185 acres in the south of France where he’s “nestled” seven of Prouvé’s Demountable Houses.As I write, the final touches are being applied to the upcoming Cartier exhibition at the V&A museum, the first about the jewellery house to have been mounted in the UK for nearly three decades. Since its treasures are too numerous to list in their entirety, we asked Nick Foulkes to focus instead on the story of one of its most enduring motifs, the panther, about which he delivers a sparkling history. Keen-eyed viewers of the Academy Awards earlier this month will have seen the Panthère languishing around the neck of Oscar-winner Zoe Saldaña or pawing at the hands of Timothée Chalamet. Hard to imagine the lucky cat was first conceived in 1914: it’s still purrfect more than a century later. @jellison22
