Sunday Escape – Casa de Campo, Oscar de la Renta's home

Oscar de la Renta was not only a fashion designer, famous throughout the world for dressing important women, Hollywood stars and first ladies such as Jackie Kennedy and Michelle Obama, for example the dress chosen by Amal Clooney for her marriage to George Clooney was his creation. He was a real aesthete with an impeccable taste, a lover of beauty in all its forms, no matter if was a female body, a fabric or a flower. He born in 1932 in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, left at eighteen to study art in Madrid. Here he discovered the passion for fashion, which becomes a concrete reality with his move to Paris, where he worked for Lanvin, and then in the United States. Thus began his triumphant career.

Although he soon moved away from his homeland, never forgotten it, choosing to spend there a lot of free time. Here in 1971 buys Casa de Campo, a house located in La Romana, on the southern part of the country. It is a wooden building inspired by Thailand, designed by architect William Cox, a beach bungalow with a thatched roof, alternating inside white tapestry and batik mixed with rattan and giant native plants. Its unique atmosphere attracts many visitors, that at some point are so numerous that the first wife of de La Renta, FranÁoise de Langlade, nicknamed it "the international airport VIP lounge". Casa de Campo also won the attention of Vogue that appoints Horst P. Horst to photograph it. To the magazine the designer explains her design choices: "To us the luxury of having a beach house is to be able to walk barefoot into the living room and sit without worrying if your bathing suit is wet. Everything costs the minimum, everything is replaceable and washable. The only things here of value are antique Chinese porcelain fish that we keep filled with flowers. We tried to keep to the colors of the island - no violent reds, blues, yellows. Apart from a few batiks, all the pillows and cushions on the cane furniture throughout the house are natural canvas or white handkerchief linen."

At the end of 1990 Oscar de la Renta moved to a villa inspired by Palladio in the Punta Cana area, near neighbors likes Mikhail Baryshnikov and Julio Iglesias. Within this new house the walls are coral stone, dark wood floors are occupied by an antique dhurri carpet, the central table is filled with art books. Wherever there are blue and white porcelain vases, candles and shells and high French doors lead to the porches that overlook the sea on one side and the lush garden on the other. Always on the same area of the Dominican Republic to report the heavenly resort Casa de Campo, 7,000 acres on which to develop golf courses, swimming pools, shops, restaurants and villas, the latter decorated by Oscar de la Renta.