High-end renovation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Between 1542 and 1547 the village’s defensive system was modernised by the building of a monumental bastioned enceinte, which takes up part of the medieval wall while reducing its perimeter to the south. A map drawn by the engineer Niquet in 1705 shows the village with the same structure as today: the plot pattern within the walls has remained stable for more than three centuries. That is a site datum before it is a historical curiosity — party walls here are old and entangled, and making good a load-bearing element almost always engages a neighbour.

Outside the walls, the territory is occupied by mas, bastides and villas set on agricultural terraced slopes and wooded ground. The material register is that of the Provençal hinterland, not that of maritime villégiature: local stone, lime renders, timber framing and tile roofs. It is the only commune in our area where this is so, and it changes everything about a complete renovation — the palette, the gestures, and even the way the comfort of today is slipped inside an existing volume.

The village and its surroundings have been registered on the inventory of picturesque sites of the Alpes-Maritimes since 13 March 1967; that measure made it possible to preserve the whole formed by the old fabric, the agricultural terraced slopes and the wooded ground. On a registered site, any works altering the appearance of the place are subject to prior declaration to the administration. The ramparts and the adjoining cemetery are furthermore classified as historic monuments by an order of 20 February 1945.

The local plan of 2020 integrates delimited perimeters for the settings of historic monuments, updated on 26 February 2021. That perimeter covers the church of the Conversion-de-Saint-Paul, a twelfth-century tower, the Porte de Vence and the tower beside it, the public fountain, a fifteenth-century arcade with window, the ramparts and the cemetery, and the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Gardette, also called Saint-Georges. Finally, the Loi Littoral does not apply here: this is the only commune in our area that is not coastal, and the regulatory levers are heritage and landscape ones, not coastal ones.

The intra-muros is served only by the two openings cut through the enceinte — that of the 1920s at the north-east bastion and that of 1985 at the south-west bastion. The geometry of those passages fixes the maximum size admissible in the village: what does not pass is not installed, and is therefore drawn otherwise. Inside, service is by narrow paved lanes, manual handling is the rule and storage of materials is not possible. The village being a site of very heavy visitor traffic, its public space is saturated for much of the year, which restricts footprints and delivery windows.

A complete work here calls on our other crafts in the order the place allows: structural and general building work to make good a party load-bearing element or an agricultural terrace wall, bespoke finishes and interiors for lime, local stone and elements drawn to the size of the two openings in the enceinte, extensions and villa fit-outs when a mas outside the walls gains a volume. The director remains the sole point of contact. The area-served page devoted to the village brings these four crafts together.