LA Robinson
As the founder of Vinterior, a well-regarded online vintage furniture marketplace, Sandrine Zhang Ferron has helped more than 100,000 clients outfit their homes with secondhand treasures since 2016. So when she was fitting out her holiday home in Mallorca for her young family, she naturally trusted her own creative and sustainable instincts.
Nestled at the foot of the Tramuntana mountains in the charming village of Serra de Tramuntana, the oasis (it once belonged to Freddie Mercury’s manager, if the estate agent is to be believed) is airy, bright and equipped with modern comforts, while honouring the spirit of the region’s traditional design. Zhang Ferron and her husband Romain, who have a six-year-old daughter, initially purchased it as a base for their hiking holidays – trips filled with fresh air and exercise followed by jamón and cold beer in the village plaza.
“When it came to designing the home, [Romain and I] wanted to respect the Mallorcan architecture without being a Mediterranean cliché,” she says.
Born in China and raised in Lille, France, before studying in Paris and relocating to London at 23, Zhang Ferron’s world has always been multicultural, so she’s well-schooled in toeing the line between tasteful homage and tacky pastiche. She knew that for the property to feel authentic, she’d need to start sourcing locally.
This began with the interior renovations they undertook in 2022. “We decided to do major work,” she says. “We changed all the flooring, from laminate to Gris Zarci, a hammered and polished stone from mainland Spain. I removed all materials that felt low-quality.
“In the larger areas, we saw an opportunity to create some built-in pieces. In the ground-floor living room, we installed a sofa, a banquette,” she says, her soft French accent elegantly articulating that last word.
“We reproduced its rounded shape on the staircase, which used to be metal, and echoed this in the bathrooms,” she says, referring to the earthy, lime-washed textures throughout the house. “We did this to create consistency.”
But Zhang Ferron wasn’t about to create a foreigner’s facsimile of a local home. It had to be reflective of her style. “We tried to marry local materials, like the Marés stone, and even the traditional Mallorcan-striped upholstery, with a bold, design-led vibe, specifically through our art.”
Chance had it that Danish fashion designer Malene Birger, known best as an outfitter to Copenhagen’s chicest residents, also lives on the Balearic island and moonlights as a painter. “My husband saw her posting her work on Instagram, and we went to visit her house. We bought a few pieces. She was doing a car-boot sale of sorts, and I bought some of her clothes as well!”
Birger’s imposing, block-stroke works can be seen in the couple’s upstairs living room, infusing the traditional Balearic atmosphere with a touch of refreshingly modern energy.
As for the furniture, Zhang Ferron says she likes to pop into Rialto Living in Palma, Mallorca’s capital, to browse the luxury brands for inspiration, but it’s the flea market in the msall town of Consell to which she’s most allegiant.
“It’s huge,” she enthuses. “It ranges from people who went to the recycling points and picked up things to sell to proper antique dealers with quality items. We go there almost every Sunday to hunt for new pieces. My advice is to go early, and go with cash.”
Her best discovery came in the form of a statement piece that now perches above the master bed. “I spied it at one of the antique dealers – it’s enormous, at three metres by 1½ metres. It used to be a keyholder at a hotel. It was very dirty and badly painted, but I saw potential. I got it for €150 [$245] and sanded and repainted it with chalk paint to make a statement piece.”
The Telegraph, UK
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