It is hard to imagine Elsa Peretti without a roof over her head.
For a time, though, the Tiffany designer lived in Sant Martí Vell while her mustard-yellow house was still without a finished roof. The Catalan village, about 73 miles from Barcelona, became one of the great anchors of her life after she discovered it in the 1960s.
Peretti acquired her first home there in 1968, when the village was still in ruins. With architect Gianfranco Bombelli, local craftspeople, and friends who helped her find artifacts at Barcelona’s Els Encants flea market, she began a long process of restoring houses and giving Sant Martí Vell back its character.
Peretti is best known as the pioneering jewelry designer whose arrival at Tiffany & Co. in 1974 changed the language of modern jewelry. In Sant Martí Vell, the same organic sensibility shaped her interiors: deep Catalan blues, rustic stone, handmade vessels, books, shells, photographs, fans, and pieces linked to friends all sat together without the stiffness of a formal show house.
Her rooms were built from memories as much as from objects: a small pillow with cheetahs by Ricky Quesada, a pink shell from Bali, a drawing of Peretti by Bill Dugan, Halston’s assistant, and a fan that belonged to her Nonna Margherita. Warhol’s Hammer and Sickle also belonged to this private, museum-like world.
Peretti died in 2021, but Sant Martí Vell remains central to her legacy. It was not simply a retreat; it was a restored village, a home, and a source of the natural forms that shaped her jewelry, objects, and enduring design language.
Peter Dark
Anna Lohan
Yolande A. Bow
miranda_shida
