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Vermiglio
French Second Empire in brick and limestone: a mansard with an oculus, an entrance portico-balcony, a garage wing
The client wanted a French mansion with a slate mansard — but not white, like the neighbours’, rather warm, alive, with character. We recalled the Franco-Flemish tradition of the Loire and the north of France, where walls are assembled from two materials: cream limestone holds the “skeleton” of the house — corner quoins, lisenes, window frames, cornices — while red brick fills the panels between them. So the palette of Vermiglio was born: the warm red brick of the upper floor within a clear limestone frame, and the whole ground floor and ceremonial accents in pale stone. The house gained that two-tone quality that sets it apart from the all-white villas: it is warmer, more human, more lived-in. All the rest follows the canon of the grand style: a dark slate mansard with arched lucarnes, a central projection with an oculus, a projecting arched entrance portico with a curved iron balcony and a fan window, and to the left a limestone garage wing. So Vermiglio appeared: a French mansion where the limestone draws and the brick warms.
Below is the path from idea to image to object: the façade and the palette, the portico and the oculus up close, the matter of the brick and limestone, the forecourt and the garden, evening and winter.
A limestone frame and a brick infill
The house is strictly symmetrical, and its walls are assembled from two materials on the Franco-Flemish principle: cream limestone holds the frame, red brick fills the fields. The whole ground floor, the corner quoins, the rusticated lisenes, the window frames, the cornices and the ceremonial accents are of pale stone; between them, on the upper floor, the panels are laid in warm red brick. So the façade reads as a clear stone drawing flooded with brick colour. Above the house rises a tall dark slate mansard with arched lucarnes; the central projection is crowned by a segmental pediment with a round oculus. At the centre, the full height, rises a double-height arched window with fan glazing, and beneath it a projecting arched entrance portico with a curved iron balcony. The ground floor stands on a brick-and-stone plinth. To the left adjoins a single-storey limestone garage wing of two arched bays — wholly of pale stone, which neatly sets the service part apart from the two-tone ceremonial volume. The house is warmer and more alive than its white neighbours, yet as strict in proportion.
Two tones and the garage
The garage is made wholly of limestone — the pale wing balances the two-tone block and leads the service function aside.
A frame of stone
The stone draws the lines, the brick gives the colour: limestone outlines every window and corner, while brick fills the fields with warmth.
A projecting limestone portico against the brick
Up close the central axis of the house opens — and here the two tones work especially strongly. The entrance portico of pale limestone is brought forward from the brick wall: a tall arched opening with a carved keystone frames the glazed doors of warm wood with a filigree fan infill, and the depth of the portico reveals brick reveals — stone without, brick within. The portico carries a curved balcony with filigree wrought-iron railing on a carved console, and onto that balcony opens a double-height arched window with fine fan glazing. Higher, in the segmental pediment of the mansard, a round oculus is set — the “eye” of the house and its signature silhouette. To the sides of the portico, cast-iron lanterns, wrought-iron stair railings and arched ground-floor windows in limestone frames. The pale stone of the portal here is deeply cut: keystones, consoles, modillions; against it the warm brick sounds especially alive, and the black wrought steel of the balcony and lanterns especially graphic. This is a ceremonial entrance where all three materials of the house meet.
The two-tone house opens at the entrance: without, a portico of pale stone; deep in the arch, warm brick. The limestone leads the guest, the brick receives. The luxury here is that the material changes exactly where the light changes.
Brick, limestone and the slate of the mansard
The house rests on a dialogue of two wall materials, brought to purity. Cream limestone — warm, fine-grained, smoothly dressed — forms the frame: the corner quoins, the rusticated lisenes, the window frames, the keystones, the portico consoles, the cornices with modillions, the urns and the whole ground floor. Hand-moulded red brick fills the panels of the upper floor: its warm, slightly uneven tone and fine joint give the wall a living, “woven” texture that smooth stone will never have. The boundary of the two materials is always clear: limestone frames each brick field with an even pale border, so that the façade reads as a stone drawing flooded with brick colour. The third material is the dark slate of the mansard with its arched lucarnes, deep graphite against the warm wall. The palette is completed by the black wrought steel of the balconies and lanterns and the brick-and-stone plinth. We chose dense, frost-resistant brick that ages beautifully, and limestone that takes both smooth dressing and fine carving: over time the brick darkens and the stone gains a patina — and the contrast only grows nobler.
Brick and limestone are not about economy but about warmth. Pale stone holds the form, red brick gives it colour and softness. A house assembled from two materials is always more alive than one cast from a single one.
A paved court of honour and a formal garden
The mansion stands behind a wrought-iron fence, and the court is resolved as a ceremonial forecourt — strictly on axis. Wrought-iron gates on stone piers open the vista straight onto the projecting portico; from them a broad cobbled court leads between clipped hedges and young trees. To the left the arched bays of the limestone garage wing adjoin the paving — the court of honour and the service drive are united yet visually kept apart. The rear, garden façade is equally two-tone and ceremonial: the same projection with its oculus, portico and fan window opens onto a terrace descending into a formal garden of roses, parterre and clipped bosquets; the brick of the upper floor glows warm amid the greenery. From above the whole idea is clear: the two-tone volume under the dark slate mansard, to the left the pale limestone garage wing, the paved forecourt and the geometry of the garden. From the court and from the garden the house is equally warm — the brick makes it part of the landscape rather than a monument set on display.
The gates and the forecourt
From the gates the two-tone façade reads at once: the pale frame of the ground floor and the warm brick of the upper under the dark mansard.
The garden façade
To the garden the house turns as warmly as to the court: the brick makes it part of the green landscape, not a white monument.
At dusk the light glows warmer against the brick
It is for the evening that this house was built around its windows — and the two tones make its evening special. At dusk the tall arched windows with fan glazing ignite from within with warm gold, and against the red brick this glow reads warmer and softer than against white stone: brick and golden light are a natural pair. At the centre, brightest of all, glows the double-height window above the projecting portico, and higher, in the segmental pediment, the round oculus fills with warm light — the “eye” of the house glows in the dusk. Concealed uplighting draws out the limestone frame, while the red brick in the darkness becomes deep, almost wine-coloured. The dark slate mansard with its lucarnes dissolves into the blue sky, and to the left the garage bay is softly lit. In winter, against the snow, the contrast sharpens to its limit: white snow, warm red brick and the gold of the windows — three temperatures in one frame, and the house amid the frozen garden looks especially lived-in and alive. In every season Vermiglio holds one thing — a French ceremony warmed by brick.
A warm glow
On white stone the golden light is colder, on brick warmer: the two-tone house is made for the evening.
Winter and brick
In winter the brick and the gold of the windows glow especially alive against the snow — where a white house would dissolve, the two-tone one only warms.
Vermiglio is about a French mansion that need not be white. The limestone draws, the brick warms, the slate crowns — and the house among its white neighbours sounds warmer and more human. A house like this can be built for you too — with an individual layout and siting on your own plot.
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We design French classicism of the full cycle: the Second Empire and neoclassicism, two-tone façades of brick and limestone, slate mansards with lucarnes, fine carving in stone. A full cycle: architecture, hands-on construction supervision and a single hand — from the brickwork in the panels to the oculus in the cartouche.