SONATA / NOBÉL

The salon at SONATA seen between marble columns, a ring chandelier over burgundy armchairs

Private residence · Middle East

2025

Location: Middle East
Scope: Interior Architectureplanning, materials, joinery and light
Year: 2025

SONATA is a classical house taken at its word: marble columns, oval ceilings coffered and lit from the cove, carved fireplaces and a stair that turns on itself beneath iron. Inside that shell everything is new. Furniture is low and sculpted, the palette is cream and stone with burgundy set into it, and light is carried in glass rings, strands of globes and columns that glow from within.

Hall / Stair

The stair is the first thing the house gives. Marble treads curve up beneath a dark iron rail, the doors beside them are framed in iron, and each opening along the way is arched.

The marble stair curving up beneath its iron balustrade

The stair rising beside tall iron-framed doors

The stair from the landing, a flight of sculpted birds above it

Salon

The salon is a run of rooms under one ceiling. Columns divide it rather than walls, a ring of light hangs over each group of chairs, and the burgundy is kept to what can be sat in.

The salon end to end beneath its coffered oval ceiling

A sculpted armchair and column lamps before the shelving wall

Travertine table and burgundy chairs beneath the chandelier

Long sofa set between marble columns, a column lamp lit beside it

Sculpted armchair standing before the shelving

Dining / Kitchen

The dining table sits beneath a strand of glass globes and the kitchen opens beside it. The island is cut from stone and lit from within at its ends, under an arched niche of shelving.

Dining table under a strand of glass globes, the garden doors open beyond

The dining table and the kitchen island beyond it, seen past a marble column

Kitchen island lit from within, an arched niche of shelving behind it

The island's onyx end lit from within, the arched niche above

Private Rooms

Upstairs the classical frame stays and the rooms change character: painted walls and chandeliers in one bedroom, a study panelled in red timber in another, a child's room built as a castle.

Sitting room with built-in shelving beside the garden doors

Principal bedroom beneath ring pendants, a painted wall behind the bed

The bed against a panelled green headboard

Bedroom with a crystal chandelier, tufted headboard and painted landscape

Curved sofa, carved fireplace and a round mirror in a sitting room

Study panelled in red timber, the desk on a dark curved base

Library corner in lacquered red timber, armchairs beneath a globe lamp

Child's room, its two beds set into a castle of timber

Bedroom against a wall of timber panels, a knitted throw over the bed

Material Register

Marble is chosen for its colour as much as its vein — green under a book, red for a basin — and set against plaster, brass and fluted stone. The details carry the same care as the rooms.

Brass cap of a column lamp, a monogram cut into it

Green marble table top with books and a brass vessel

Powder room, a red marble vanity beneath a carved mirror

The red marble vanity at its edge, a brass ring on the stone wall

Plaster relief medallion set into a panelled wall

Fluted veined stone above a stacked dark timber base