A while back, Julie and I discovered a collection of handblown vases and bottles that look unearthed from an ancient era—see Design Sleuth: La Soufflerie’s Glassware. On a trip to Paris last year, I happened upon La Soufflerie’s store in Saint-Germain-des-Près and commented to the manager that if the atelier founders live in a place that looks anything like the boutique, we’d love to see it.
Many months later, Valentina Nobile surprised me with a batch of photos. She provided no background, and seeing knotty pine paneling and hand-me-down furnishings, I figured I was looking at her family’s inherited retreat from Paris.
YES, we were interested in featuring their cabin, I responded. Valentina set me straight: the woodsy chalet is actually her family’s Paris duplex in the 15th arrondissement, near Montparnasse; she and her husband (and La Soufflerie co-founder), Sébastien Nobile, designed and built it themselves. “We were actually among the first private people in Paris to be able to buy roof rights and build our own place. Sébastien is the one who did most of the construction with his own hands. It’s an ecologically responsible home, all made out of wood with cork insulation.”
Join us for a tour of their urban hideaway (and scroll to the end to see it coming together).
Photography by Louis Daumur, courtesy of La Soufflerie (@lasoufflerie).

It took can-do and savoir faire. Valentina and Sébastien designed their place together. Valentina doggedly worked through the permissions process, and Sébastien, who is a sculptor, glassblower, and master plaster caster, among other things, spent 18 months building the duplex, which was completed in 2017. He teaches mold making at the Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, and one of his students, William Wick, an architect on the verge of retiring, stepped in and helped with the structural planning and worked with Paris Charpente, the company that built the duplex’s pre-fabricated frame.
The bud vase shown here is La Soufflerie’s Bougeoir Bulles Framboise; €29.

The walls and ceiling are pine and the floor is waxed oak. A lot of the furnishings, including the 1930s cherry barrel chairs and glass vitrine, came out of Valentina’s grandparents’ Milan apartment—the latter holds 1920s Venetian stemware “from when my grandparents got married.” Their sofa is Hay’s Arbour Two Seater.

The company has grown enormously—they now run several glassblowing studios around the world and sell their wares internationally at notably reasonable prices (Julie and I first came across them at John Derian’s shops in Provincetown and NYC). But they remain committed to using recycled glass as their base material, employing the age-old mouth-blown approach, and to helping teach the craft and support a global community of glass artisans (part of their business is nonprofit and all operate as waste-free as possible: their wares ship wrapped in recycled paper in recycled cardboard boxes to which they add protective cardboard compartments.
Shown on their coffee table: La Soufflerie’s Porta Candele Transparent, Red Wine Glass, Soliflore Bosselé White, and Head Vase.

The apartment’s glass hanging lights are 1960s Italian, passed down from Valentina’s father.

Admiring the globe light? See Remodelista Reconnaissance: Festive, Candy-Like Pendant Lights.





The door behind the stair—leading to the family TV room/guest room/office—is also curved and had to be made-to-order and installed by a specialist. “Flat surfaces here wouldn’t have made sense visually, at least not to us,” says Valentina.
In Progress





Here are three more creatives at home:
- Living Above the Studio: At Home and Work with Lappalainen
- A Ceramic Artist’s Enviable Life on the Scottish Coast
- An Architect’s Labor-of-Love Family Home in the Japanese Countryside
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