On a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France (near Monaco), Eileen Gray’s E-1027 house was built to share with her lover, Romanian architect and critic Jean Badovici. The name of the house sounds impersonal, but it is in fact a numeric code for their joint initials.

Completed in 1929, Gray created a landmark of modernist architecture. L-shaped and flat-roofed with floor-to-ceiling windows and a spiral stairway to the guest room, E-1027 is both open and compact. The villa has an open and flexible design which allowed the user to experience the space of living as an organic whole comprising the self, the house, and the outside environment.

Inexplicably, over the years the villa had steadily fallen into disrepair and continued until efforts to save it were successful only recently. After a lengthy and protracted restoration process, the villa will open this fall to the public.

For more information: Friends of E-1027