Tucked away in a residential estate in Plouescat, a seaside resort on the north coast of Brittany, is a house that, at first glance, was always fairly indistinguishable from your typical 1980s build. It’s only after you ventured to the very end of the cul-de-sac, pushed open a gate and circled around to the back garden that you spotted a few of the unusual objects that made up the sometime owner’s collection: a shell-encrusted boat and some cartwheels, a taster of what awaited visitors inside. Still, the exterior was not so dissimilar to what your average garden eccentrics might create, the fruit of their unbridled imagination, something to amuse passers-by. For François Botherel, however, these outdoor installations made after his retirement in the 1980s were but the preparatory sketches to his magnum opus: covering his entire home, floor to ceiling, bathroom to bedroom, in many thousands of seashells. This project would only come to a halt when he moved into a nursing home, where he lived for 15 years before dying in 2022 at the age of 94.
The public can no longer visit this gem, which no longer exists – at least not as it appears in these photographs that capture this extraordinary explosion of multicoloured shells in every single room. Even the stair risers are covered in a legion of pink and blue shells set in glue, with a few artfully arranged orange scallops peeking out from in between. It’s a motif that continues on the walls of the dining room, which are themselves adorned with alternating rows of tightly packed scallops and pink and yellow queen scallops mixed with ochre periwinkles, all topped by a star-shaped frieze of mussel shells. Not even the furniture escaped this seashell tsunami. The top of the dining table is encrusted with yet more scallops set in a blue glue base, which contrasts with the green used for the table edges, while the country-style chairs are decked out to match: legs and backs have been colonised by ochre queen scallops, beige wedge clams and black periwinkles arranged by shade and glue colour (blue for the chair posts, green for the back cross rails). Only the wicker seats have been spared – except, that is, for the subtle border of white wedge clams set in pink glue. In one corner stood a towering Comtoise grandfather clock with pink wedge clams running along the edges of the dial and case.
The decoration of the sideboard and bar was given particular thought. At the top of the former, also adorned with shells, we find a photograph of a felucca on the Nile, a souvenir from the owner’s travels in Egypt, framed on either side by two panels filled with orange and yellow scallops arranged in alternating horizontal rows. On the top, duly draped in its own cloak of shells, is a stuffed fox surrounded by assorted candles. The bar is certainly the most heavily adorned piece, and leads us to the garage, which is where visitors would start their tour. It was a place for experimentation, where the artist would enjoy explaining his process while sharing videos of his travels. It is a personal museum that, in its own idiosyncratic way, tells the story of François Botherel’s life, beginning with his childhood on a farm near Plouescat, which is evoked in a series of cupboards lined with wedge clams (tinted blue from the glue) used to display tools and other rural objects: an old cartwheel, just like the one in the garden, a wheelbarrow containing a pair of bellows, a horse-plough harness and a pair of Roberval balance scales.
Egyptian papyrus can be spotted on the door leading to the house, another nod to his taste for the exotic, along with photographs of canyons and the China Sea dotted here and there around the room. This assembly of objects has an autobiographical air.
After growing up by the sea, Botherel worked as a data processor for IBM in the Paris region, just like his uncle. He was credited with making a breakthrough in the field that allowed him to take early retirement at the age of 55, when he decided to return to Plouescat, build his house, file for divorce and slowly occupy himself with what would eventually become an obsession. It all began with his habit of placing seashell-covered vases of flowers at his parents’ grave. In addition to this new-found hobby, he also had a taste for archaeology, and wasted no time digging up his backyard with a hoe. He never did unearth the ancient foundations of the hermitage of a ninth-century Irish saint belonging to his parish that he’d been intently searching for. Perhaps it was the frustration arising from that fruitless quest that made him turn his focus to shells. He called a halt to his archaeological explorations and instead combed the shoreline to find the perfect embellishments for each chapter in his life. Consumed by this idea, he occasionally called on the help of his two cousins, but usually worked alone all day long, cleaning, varnishing, even painting these treasures.
His findings were meticulously organised by colour and by size in trays, stored in the attic while he planned his arrangements. If the guest book is anything to go by, visitors came from far and wide, and several of them noted that the seashell house gave off a strong briny odour. Alas, all of the furnishings have now been sold or given away, and all that remains of François Botherel’s work is that faint aroma, so evocative of a life that once was.
A version of this article appears in the May 2025 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers
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