Saturday 10^th July 2010

Yes!  I’m back on the Côte. And I still haven’t finished telling you about the last time, two weeks ago, when I was at Cap Ferrat for Ralph Kitto’s birthday. But I’m going to work it in somehow.

Now, I’m at Virgil Grayson’s house, west of St Tropez. He’s got the Mediterranean laid out at the bottom of his steep garden. Right there.  I can hear it lapping. Utter seclusion. The public are not on view, nor any other dwellings. There’s a private beach.

The house itself was an unremarkable 30s villa a few years ago, until Virgil wrenched and knocked and flung and now it’s an airy magical space, white walls, soft grey paintwork, red tiled floors, commanding balcony – simple, restrained and natural. He’s an architect, you know.  Whenever you look out to sea through a window or door, somehow it’s a picture.

Yesterday morning Virgil called me from the garden where everything is species, no hybrids, echiums, succulents, arbutus, agapanthus, exceptional conifers, all rare, rare, rare, shades of green and silver. He does it all himself. He was trying to trim 6 inches off the top of a cork oak. I had to pull a branch over so he could reach. ‘It’s all about editing,’ he said. He was editing the tree so it would grow in one direction to form a screen, at the same time framing the vista of the sea.

That’s why, whenever you look out of a window or door in this house somehow it’s a picture. It’s all been edited by Virgil Grayson.

What a triumph! But not achieved without struggle, of course.

Poor Little Rich Gays do love to be architects. I have my own architect, Bruce MacBain, who was, as it happens, nurtured by Virgil. I keep him with me at all times. Architects seize big slabs of the earth and mould and shape them as they please. Which is perfect for Poor Little Rich Gays. What’s more, you can spend hours and hours poring over tap catalogues, insist that the tiling is re-done for the sixth time and send for unlimited flooring samples, none of which will be right.

In the evening, Virgil made a potato salad. New potatoes, you understand, not terrible old winter ones. All the same, he boiled, then peeled them. Even I was astonished.

And humbled.

Attention to detail on this scale has taken Virgil a long way, I can tell you.

A Vista of the Mediterranean Created by Virgil Grayson in the South of France

Salad Made by Virgil Grayson with New Potatoes but Peeled