The French painter Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) spent his last 23 years in the village of Rossinière, near Gstaad, living in Switzerland’s largest chalet, with its 113 windows. The Grand Chalet, as it is known, is now home to his widow, Japanese-born Countess Setsuko Klossowska de Rola, 35 years his junior and herself an established painter.
How did you find this remarkable chalet?
Balthus caught malaria in the army in Morocco and a doctor told him there was no cure but that he should move to Switzerland to keep it at bay. We looked for a place in Gstaad and the friends we were staying with suggested we go for a cup of tea at a nearby hotel in the small village of Rossinière. The minute we saw this magnificent façade, we fell in love with the place. We stepped inside and I turned to Balthus and said “I want this house”.
A strong reaction.
It was straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, with spinsters and old British colonels sipping tea. At the same time, it reminded me of a traditional Japanese house. It felt very familiar. Balthus raved about the ceiling, the doors and the English owner asked us if we wanted to see Victor Hugo’s salon. Hugo had stayed a few nights here and his room was now a living room. Then the owner told us he had serious health problems and had been unsuccessfully trying to sell. He said he’d leave us all the furniture, down to the chalet’s 40 chamber pots. We were wild with enthusiasm and made our minds up very quickly. We spent a year restoring the house to its original state. Balthus already had a great deal of experience with renovation work. He had a large balcony removed. The chalet was originally built for a rich farmer who wanted to make cheese. We transformed the cheese cellar into a reception room. Now it is the headquarters of the Balthus Foundation.
MY FAVOURITE THINGS
I am a very materialistic person and would find it hard to choose a single object I prefer. I like books and still own some traditional Japanese poetry volumes with my mother’s name on the front cover.
Mozart. The magical power of his music inspires my work, particularly when I start working on something new. There is a sort of quiet excitement to his quartets. When I’ve made a mess of something and have to start over, I listen to his operas.
Balthus’s palette, which I keep in my studio. A palette is the first step in the craft of painting. Balthus’s is my guardian angel, I owe him so much as an artist.
Paintbrushes, because they transform an empty page. I particularly like English and Japanese brushes.
Everything produced by the warmth of someone’s hand, including cooking. I never used to cook and it’s something I really enjoy doing now. I make eastern dishes because they are plainer and less greasy. The most important thing is fresh produce.
I enjoy walking in the mountains whether it showers, rains or shines. My concerns and worries disappear thanks to the sheer pleasure of walking.
To live fully, passionately, with all the intensity of my heart in the single moment. I am always in love.
Was it terribly expensive?
Pierre Matisse, Henri’s son and Balthus’s New York dealer, paid for it and Balthus painted five works in exchange. It took him years. He was a very slow worker and it could take him 10 years to finish a painting. Balthus was almost 70 when we bought the house but he set to work at once.
Did Balthus do a lot of the renovation work himself?
At the time he was still running the French Academy in Rome and was busy redesigning its gardens. We got a professional to do the work. The biggest job was stripping the wood. The walls had been covered with beige and grey oil paint and we removed it all. I did most of the interior decorating myself, although we chose antiques together. It’s a huge house but I like to fill every inch of space. There’s my studio, my daughter Harumi’s studio, a sewing workshop, my kimono room, a room for suitcases and so on. No corner is left empty.
Is there something special about the smell and sound of wood?
Wood is a living organism that breathes and makes cracking, moaning sounds that evoke to me all the joys and sorrows of the people who lived here. I like that. That’s why I felt as if the house had enfolded me in its arms the minute I crossed the threshold.
Did Balthus feel that the view through the window was equally important to the house itself?
A beautiful house has to be in harmony with its surroundings. The village here is ravishing, without a wrong note. If you looked out of the windows of the château at Chassis in France, where Balthus spent many years, or Montecalvello, our place in Italy, or Le Grand Chalet, you’d see nothing that evokes modern times. We still have lots of farmers here and in the summer you hear the clanging of cowbells.
What did the chalet mean to Balthus?
He was very attached to Switzerland because he had spent much of his childhood at Beatenberg. His first wife, Antoinette de Watteville, was Swiss. To live in Switzerland was a little like going home. He was also a great lover of the Orient and the Grand Chalet has something of that Oriental warmth.
Have you kept Balthus’s studio as it was?
Yes, exactly as it was, with his cigarettes, glasses and paintbrushes. The night before he died the doctor allowed him to leave the hospital to come home and he went straight to his studio. We stayed there for three hours and he was completely lucid. When he left the room he fell into a coma. I have my own atelier in the house, and Harumi, who is a jewellery designer, has one, too, that she uses when she visits.
Do you have plans for the house?
Harumi and I want it to become a Balthus house, with all his personal belongings, but while we are still around we want to use it regularly for cultural activities. Over two summers Harumi organised an arts course for American and French children who had been mistreated. [German director] Wim Wenders showed them how to make films, I initiated them to calligraphy and several other artists worked here for free.
What was your childhood house like?
We lived in a traditional Japanese house that had withstood the second world war. Wooden architecture has a special charm, although my childhood home and the Grand Chalet are very different.
What about the Montecalvello château?
We discovered it together at a time when Balthus was looking for a place in Italy. We must have visited 80 ruins. He liked architectural authenticity and preferred a house or a château in ruins to one that had been overly done up. The château of Montecalvello, which is in the Lazio, north of Rome near Orvieto, belonged to a farmer who used it for storing grain. This time it cost a lot less than five paintings and took two years to restore to its original state. Balthus’s two sons occupy it now and I go to visit once in a while.
