House of jewels: exploring Elsa Peretti’s
Spanish homes

An hour and a half’s drive northeast of Barcelona lies the sleepy village of Sant Marti Vell. At first glance it looks no different from any other 16th-century settlement in this part of Catalonia, but within its thick stone walls visitors get an extraordinary insight into the life of one of the world’s most important jewellery designers, Elsa Peretti. It is 50 years since Peretti joined Tiffany & Co, and 56 years since she bought her first home in the village. By the time she died, at the age of 80, in 2021, she had bought and renovated 27 houses and large farmhouses.

Peretti rented the majority to friends, artists and local creatives while living permanently from the 1980s between four of them — Casa Pequeña (the first house she bought here in 1968), Casa Grande, Can Noves and Casa Caballo — moving according to season, mood or houseguests. A bedroom would always be set up in each, ready for an impromptu stay. Today the houses are looked after by the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, a philanthropic organisation named in honour of her father, with Peretti’s personal staff retained to manage the estate. To be shown around by them is the closest one can get to understanding the life and mind of this notoriously press-shy designer.

Walking through the multiple spaces of the four homes, some of which are linked by a series of underground tunnels, is a visual feast. Against a backdrop of original features — stone walls, beams, fireplaces and traditional stone sinks — a lifetime of acquired objects, furniture, art and books is displayed. Peretti was an obsessive collector and supporter of local craft, commissioning furniture and sculpture from Spanish artists while mixing art from Africa, Japan and China in a heady combination of genres and styles.

Flashes of her life in New York as a model and friend of Halston, Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton and Liza Minnelli are tantalisingly visible, while a whole room is dedicated to her friend Salvador Dalí, filled with photographs, artworks, letters and sketches. Until her death Peretti could be found continuously editing and curating her possessions, and since that moment every room has been left untouched. Spaces range from small and intimate to large and grandiose. On entering Casa Pequeña, black-and-white photographs on a desk show Peretti working with local builders and artisans to restore this first house in 1968; she moved in alone with no electricity or running water. Above them on a pinboard are sketches and notes and the last Tiffany catalogue she was working on before she died. A print by Richard Hamilton sits beside a sculpture by Joan Gardy Artigas with an emerald eye — it was this contrast of local art and the international avant-garde the designer cherished.

Attention to every detail mattered. In a small bedroom in Can Noves the walls are painted with crushed lapis lazuli mixed with chalk to a specific shade Peretti wanted, and the blue can be found throughout the houses. On the walls are a picture by Robert Llimós (she was an avid collector) and a Marcel Duchamp, while the original wooden prototype for Peretti’s iconic Bone cuff sits on a shelf casually mixed in with local finds. On the back of the door is a fur coat; on the windowsill a collection of smooth pebbles she loved. A photograph by Cartier-Bresson and a sketch by Picasso hang nearby.

As the houses became more habitable, Peretti started to entertain — not necessarily with large parties but intimate gatherings of her friends, including the Catalan artists Xavier Corberó and Llimós. The grand living room of Casa Grande was perfect for this and she would host flamenco evenings. Dinner would be served around an ancient millstone so big and heavy that it was craned in through the window (Peretti and Minnelli, who was a houseguest at the time, tried to move it to a different spot when it arrived, to no avail). Smoking continuously and ­surrounded by her many dogs, Peretti would entertain generously, with ample food served on her Tiffany homeware and illuminated by her silver Bone candlesticks. Pudding would be her favourite local soft cheese drizzled with honey.

References to her life as a jeweller can be spotted everywhere in this central room — a Gaudí Batllo bench with curved seats is reminiscent of her famous Bean collection. A huge African woven straw mask is displayed (plus several others throughout the houses) in a nod to her love of texture and the intricacy of woven materials, as seen in her Tiffany gold Mesh collection. Specially commissioned patinated bronze chairs by Corberó are significant: she met him in the late 1960s and he taught her how to work in metal. Photography on the walls is by Hiro, a long-time collaborator with Peretti on jewellery campaigns. And Japanese black silk tassels, which she would later incorporate into her jewellery and homeware collections, hang by a door.

Texture, form and a strong palette are recurring themes. In Can Noves, centuries’ worth of thick soot from the open fire covers the kitchen walls. Instead of removing it, Peretti revelled in the contrast of the black against her silver Tiffany Padova cutlery. While entertaining she would fill her cobalt Venetian glass bowls with apricots or boiled eggs cut in half so that the orange yolks contrasted with the blue. Piles of her glossy lacquer Doughnut bangles would be left stacked on a table alongside photographs of her dogs, a copy of Citizen K magazine, books by David Attenborough and an old Christie’s catalogue.

Other rooms have been allowed to function purely as aesthetic spaces. In the tack room of the Can Noves stables are rows of ancient saddles, their leather embellished with Peretti’s Tiffany Equestrian belt buckles. Other areas are wonderfully pared back and almost monastic in their simplicity — Peretti was fascinated by Japan and inspired by the concept of “shibui”, in which stone and wood are left unadorned to show their beauty. This raw, rustic character runs through every property and sits in tandem with her collection of art and artefacts.