Interior designer Monica Damonte transforms a Mediterranean villa into the perfect family holiday home

Sunset is Monica Damonte's favourite time of day. Two years ago, it was the soft light of a sunset filtering through the large living room windows of the interior designer's holiday home in southern France that made the house feel truly hers.

"I felt so warm and serene ... I couldn't resist it," she says, quoting the late novelist and politician Benjamin Disraeli: "There is no love but love at first sight."

When she first saw the villa in Gassin, a small medieval village in the heart of Provence, she knew there was something special about it. Beautifully isolated in the green, lush countryside in the south of France, a few minutes from lively Saint-Tropez, the villa is a romantic haven, surrounded by sprawling vineyards and gentle hills, the air redolent with the fragrance of rosemary and oleander.

For Damonte, there could be no better place to escape to for a quiet holiday with her partner Carlo, his son Andrea and her two daughters Victoria and Ginevra. "I immediately felt that this could be a safe shelter for my family, a place to be when all you wanted was tranquillity," she says. "The magical thing about this house is its easy ability to adapt to our needs every season, each time we visit. It just fits naturally into any moment of our lives."

As a reputed interior designer from Liguria in northern Italy, Damonte leads a busy life. In addition to owning Odulio boutique in Alassio, she is no stranger to celebrity, with an impressive portfolio featuring consulting and collaborative projects with clients the likes of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Her sophisticated style and emphasis on bespoke design serve as her professional code and ethos, so it comes as no surprise that when it came to her own holiday haven, she held nothing back.

Confronted with the home's initial state - a sober yet nevertheless intimate Mediterranean villa - Damonte first imagined how she wanted it to feel. "I wanted to produce the sensation of a warm hug," she says. Using that as the underlying design concept, she set to work.

The house has since doubled in size and now includes a top floor to accommodate guests. However, Damonte was careful not to lose the calm and soothing intimacy that so beautifully characterised the villa. As such, the smoky walls and dark wooden floors - which could so easily have made the space feel heavy - were paired with soft fabrics in jewel tones that leaned more towards opulence than sombre gravity. Similarly, bright touches of brass lifted the décor and lit up the interior. The overall effect now is one of bourgeois elegance and lush comfort.

Not a single room in the house was designed purely for function - rather, Damonte wanted the family to fully enjoy each space, whether they were warming themselves in front of the fireplace, relaxing in the kitchen while sampling the local cheese and jam, or in bed having a leisurely lie-in.