Bazaar Arabia Takes A Tour Around Interior Designer Marie Soliman’s Subtle Yet Sensational Home
This soulful Mallorcan villa is an invitation to slow down, with Egyptian interior designer Marie Soliman imagining a family home that breathes with the rhythm of island life
A villa, rooted in traditional Mallorcan architecture, tucked away in the hills of the Tramuntana mountains, is a holiday retreat designed as a heartfelt expression of craftsmanship, creativity and luxury. The home pays homage to the local vernacular with its warm stone façade, terracotta roof tiles and muted pink shuttered windows. “It was the perfect story of creativity and setting,” says Marie Soliman, the Egyptian co-founder
and creative director of London-based Bergman Design House, who was enlisted, with her business partner Albin Berglund, to weave magic over the property. “The location of those sweeping views and the ever-changing light were magnetic. But what truly pulled us in was the opportunity to explore a home where every room held its own identity. From textured walls to vividly coloured stones in each bathroom, we were given a playground of materials and moods. It was a designer’s dream.”
The finca (countryside home) belongs to Stella Ardabili, the owner of S&E Group, the exclusive distributor in Switzerland for premium skincare brand Anne Semonin, a holiday home she shares with her husband and two sons, Maxim, 10, and Damian, six. Turning to Bergman Design House for Marie’s non-linear approach to design, she says, “There are interior designers, then there is Marie. We loved that she thinks outside the box, with daring ideas and her use of colour is out of this world.” The original structure of the villa, built in the early 2000s, underwent a recent soulful transformation, preserving its bones while reimagining its interiors with a contemporary sensibility. Inside, the design language shifts into something more nuanced. “We wanted each room to sing with personality, yet feel cohesive and grounded,” Marie explains of finding the sweet spot between balancing bold creativity with the serenity of the location.
Renovations of the 4,000-square-foot, four-bedroom villa took over 14 months to complete, with Marie and her team sourcing bespoke materials and working with local artisans and Italian stones to ensure every finish felt authentic. The initial moodboard brought together Mediterranean monastic architecture, the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi that celebrates the beauty found in imperfection and the soulful calm it brings, and, of course, the setting. “The house itself was the muse,” Marie smiles. “The play of light and shadow, the whisper of the sea in the distance, the age-old trees dotting the hillside – all of it guided the palette and textures.” Colour codes draw on the surrounding landscape: the soft glow of sunbleached neutrals, the dusty warmth of terracotta, olivetinted greens and serene marine blues evoking the sea-scorched earth and sky of Mallorca. “It was a joy to witness how the natural landscape translated into a tranquil, sensory palette indoors,” the designer adds.
The heart of the family home is the central lounge that cleverly dissolves the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. Sliding gently onto a panoramic terrace, it “creates a fluid dance between shelter and sky, inviting the landscape to come inside,” Marie describes. “It’s very much a pied-à-terre, a beloved family home where the family retreats to reconnect with nature, with each other, with themselves.” Which feeds into Marie’s vision of creating every room as a singular sanctuary with its own personality, yet “embodying the balance between the individual narrative and the unified whole.”
Materials are tactile throughout – stone, natural plaster, hand-crafted tiles, linen and weathered wood all anchoring the design in authenticity, “creating a soothing synergy between time-honoured craft and contemporary minimalism,” Marie states. “There’s something deeply grounding about running your hand along a roughly hewn stone wall or sinking into a linen sofa after a day in the sun. The materials invite you to slow down.”
“The finca is a soulful dialogue between what was and what can be,” she adds of the old embracing the new. “Heritage interwoven with modern sensibility, where vernacular reverence and minimalist refinement coalesce. Each room, each chapter, each material, a meditation. It is timeless but fresh, gentle but intentional. In this finca, history isn’t preserved, it is honoured, made new and celebrated.”
Colour plays out with pink cosmos and jade stone, Lapis Lazuli, ochre and emerald, with each bathroom becoming a “jewel box and visual surprise” that allowed the spaces to tell their own story, without competing with the natural beauty outside. “The bathrooms emerged as lively punctuation marks in the house,” says Marie. “Rich emeralds and bold pinks turned these intimate chambers into unexpected bursts of vibrant drama – like secret, precious keepsakes tucked away in a quiet sanctuary.”
For fabrics, it’s a thoughtful mix by Perennials, Elitis and Altfield, and a Baker lounge chair placed on a Colbourns rug “as an invitation to relax”, with “delicious” linens and hand embroidery from Oliveri and a bespoke handmade coral-inspired 3D wall by DKT Artworks.
There’s an insouciant ambience that flows through the home, the expansive open-plan ethos bringing an easy energy to the spaces. “We wanted to create a sanctuary of calm, nurturing, deeply restful,” says Marie. “That meant soft lighting, a muted colour scheme and spaces that flow gently from one to another. Every element, from the curve of a chair leg to the weave of a rug, was chosen to encourage presence and peace.”
The powder room is Marie’s favourite space, with its “perfect mix of pink cosmos stone, intriguing Lapis Lazuli mirror and hint of French agate lighting by Apparatus.” As for Stella and her family, it’s the finca’s soulful serenity that truly endures. “It feels like home but very different than our Swiss home. It’s calm, zen, just the perfect vibe for a summer home.”
Photography by Vigo Jansons
From the Harper’s Bazaar November 2025 Issue.