If there is any constant in the life of Madelon Oudshoorn Spaargaren, owner of Amsterdam-based design studio MOS Interiors, it is travel. As a child, she was raised peripatetically among Australia, England, Venezuela and Oman. Even as an adult, when she settled in her native Netherlands with her husband and four children – two boys and two girls – “We moved a lot in Amsterdam,” she admits, adding by way of explanation with a sardonic smile, “We do like renovating homes.”
Her globe-trotting, Oudshoorn Spaargaren explains, “exposed me early to different cultures, histories and aesthetics. Traveling has become my greatest addiction. I am endlessly fascinated by what drives people and civilizations. I return home with stories, knowledge, fabrics and objects found along the way, all of which inevitably find their place in my interiors. If I could, I would live as a nomad.”
It is no surprise, then, that the 7,535-square-foot, 18th-century villa the family purchased near Grasse – called Mas des Sources (or Farmhouse of the Springs, for the natural water sources dotting the surrounding countryside) – should embody a consummately global aesthetic. The house was first transformed in the 19th century by an admiral in the entourage of Napoleon Bonaparte. According to local legend, Bonaparte himself sojourned here while traveling through the South of France.
When they first renovated Mas des Sources in 1999, it was, she describes, “a cache-misère,” a French word loosely translated as “camouflage” and implying an attractive façade that conceals a dilapidated interior. Oudshoorn Spaargaren added two baths above the kitchen to give each room en suite conveniences, but other measures were primarily cosmetic. In 2023, however, the family discovered moisture damage behind stairs and walls due to groundwater that was, she states, “like a river running through the cache-misère.” A more radical renovation became necessary.
The designer removed a whole floor above the dining area to achieve an airier, double-height space. She also collapsed the nine bedrooms into seven and compensated for some of the diminished guest quarters with a two-bed trailer parked beneath the trees off the terraces outside the house. She also enlarged the kitchen and replaced cabinetry with MDF panels that had a rattan-like texture and made it “less Provençale” overall. Floors were also replaced using wide wood planking.
Oudshoorn Spaargaren designed an organic-form fireplace reminiscent of a kiva in the dining area and clad walls in earthen-colored plaster. “It suited the site,” she notes, pointing to the rolling hills covered with old-growth trees that surround the house. “I like a lot of light, but I never do white walls,” she explains. Windows on the first floor were converted to French doors to amplify the light and offer easy access to terraced gardens, an outdoor kitchen, a pool and lounging areas.
The revamped interiors became an exotic mix of global fabrics and artifacts. “I am a real lover of African and Indian cultures,” she shares. Textiles and artifacts reveal these predilections. But true to her world-traveler nature, they mingle with Cambodian sculpture, vases from Morocco, ironwork by local artisans, modern lighting by Moooi (living room) and LZF (massive Totem pendants over dining table), and murals reminiscent of Ndebele art from South Africa (enveloping a stairwell) and on a backsplash in the kitchen, the latter inspired by Giorgio Morandi’s still life paintings.
“The renovations had to be done so that Mas des Sources will last another hundred years,” states Oudshoorn Spaargaren.
Photography by Space Content Studio.
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