At the foot of Monte Rosa
Project Gressoney
Just one kilometer from the center of Gressoney Saint-Jean, in Valle d’Aosta, on the edge of the woods, the Chalet Monterosa bed&breakfast reflects the need for peace and well-being of those who built it and the approach to life and the mountains of those who adopted it.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live wisely,” is the famous phrase from Thoreau’s Walden, “to front only the essential facts of life.” It seems to be the same impulse that moved a couple to adopt an “independent and confident” way of life – life and the mountains, with everything they both have to offer – and a completely wooden house on the edge of a forest of larches.
It is on a plain in the Lys valley at the foot of Monte Rosa, in Gressoney Saint-Jean, that the house where Micol and Paolo with their five children have chosen to live since December 2022 was built by Rubner Haus between July and the beginning of autumn 2021. The house, designed by architect Martino Cossard, from Gressan, takes up the Walser architecture, typical of these areas and characterized by double bodies in stone and wood, and gable roofs, but with modern elements that make it an ideal place for the bed&breakfast business started by Micol and Paolo.
The result is a home harmoniously placed into the natural environment, an architecture that captures the fundamental aspects of the surrounding landscapes and mountain. On the ground floor, open to the outside, are the gorgeous rooms of the B&B. A central oak staircase gives access to the first floor, meant for the family. Everything in this construction reaffirms the dialogue with the surrounding nature and with the light: the large windows, the balconies that run almost the entire length of the house, from north to west and south.
