Between the French and Italian Rivieras, on the hills above Cannes, where the sea meets a landscape of terraced hillsides, an old stone house has returned to its original calling: welcoming travellers. More than a century and a half ago, the house served as an inn for wayfarers passing through. Céline Mastrorelli purchased it with the intention of picking up the thread of that story. The encounter marked the beginning of a new professional chapter, following a career as a singer-songwriter, composer and performer.

This is a borderland, suspended between two worlds that blend here with effortless ease: on one side the Côte d’Azur, on the other the sun-drenched energy of western Liguria. Provençal light brushes the façade with its green shutters, while the scents shift with the wind. Inside, thick walls and original floors shape an atmosphere that feels both simple and carefully considered. In the garden, the silence is broken only by the soft murmur of a fountain. Lavender bushes, roses, citrus and olive trees surround a pétanque court beneath a linden tree. At the heart of Céline’s approach to hospitality is her cooking. Not a conventional restaurant service, but the staging of celebratory banquets rich with cultural meaning — a way of hosting that is soon to become a book. Céline brings to the table the vitality of local markets, the passion of farmers, wild herbs and the catch of the day. Each gathering begins and ends there, around the table, where moments of sharing unfold: tasting, commenting, exchanging stories about ingredients and the traditions that accompany them. The hostess possesses that rare gift of weaving together domestic warmth, familial intimacy and aesthetic care. At the end of each meal, the house returns to silence, like after a perfectly successful celebration.

Words Meraviglia Paper, photographs Francesca Moscheni.