Maison de L’amitie (home/house/companion of friendship) is a Homestead region held by Corina Wonder I’ve been prone to dropping into on an irregular basis over the last several years. Throughout most of those visits, the region’s design has been the work of Corina herself, and has always presented photogenic setting, sometimes inspired by physical world locations (such as her 20219 recreation Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, which I covered here).
However, in dropping in to it at the start of March 2025, I was interested to note that while Corina still holds the region, the setting it presented is the work of LuaneMeo (holder and co-creator of Luane’s World, an oft-featured setting in these pages) and her frequent region design partner, Gorba McMahon. However, given the time since my last visit, I’m not sure if this is a new arrangement or one that has been going on for a while; not that it i important – the region remains as engaging as it every has been.
With spring starting to make its presence felt in many parts of the northern hemisphere, Maison de L’amitie presents a setting in keeping with the season – and one potential suitable for summer as well. The landscape is split into three: a large, main island and two smaller off-shoots looking as if they might have once been connected to one another and the main island, but which now sit just of the coast, low grassy / sandy humps just peeping above the waves enough to entice people to visit.
And visit they can; along the beach of the southern coast of the main island are a couple of wooden decks extending out over the blue waters (one so low in fact that it looks like its might be considering going for a swim!).
The larger of the two decks offers a little wooden boat with outboard motor to putter across the bay to either of the little islands, whilst the smaller of the two has an inflatable boat rezzer disguised as a life ring. Copies of the latter can be found on both of the smaller islands, thus allowing visitors to make their way back to the larger after explorations of the little isles has left them sans their original transport.
These two smaller islands are very individual in their looks. One is little more than a sandbar valiantly fighting the erosion of time and tide as they slowly but inevitably lays claim to its sands. An old adobe walled shack sits on the back of the island, now converted into a surfing shack and carrying various nautical-theme decorations within itself, a surfboard / paddle board propped again an outside wall together with a couple of paddles – the latter presumably waiting for someone to grab one of them and use with the board, the waters perhaps being far too peaceful for any actual surfing.
The second of these smaller islands is a little more substantial, a good portion of it formed by a grassy-haired table of flat rock sitting with an crescent of sand around one side. Trees have gathered around the remnants of a building here which, from the main island, might have the appearance of an old chapel long ago fallen into disuse and collapse. Within its shell someone has built a little lean-to as a shelter and both it and the chapel-like window opening high on the wall offer places to sit.
The main island sits much higher above the water and is almost completely hemmed by a ribbon of beach running around its edge, the sands flattening and flaring out at the island’s southern extent to form a beachy promontory, its southern tip curling slightly towards the sandbar and its shack, as if trying to reconnect to them.
It’s fairly clear from the compressed and sedimented layers of the exposed sandstone behind the southern arc of the beach, that this island has faced its share of inclement weather down the years sufficient enough to leave its mark in the exposed rock. However, this has not prevented the island becoming an attractive home and place for tourists to appreciate; the gentle rise and curl of its grass-covered back is home to a rich variety of trees and, around them, the vibrant colours of flowers in full bloom. This flowers seem to ebb and flow across the island’s middle saddle as it separates a large and beflowered stone house on the western uplands from the Tuscan-style villa to the east, the latter perfectly sited to look out over the beach’s broad headland.
The villa forms both the region’s Landing Point and a little café with both an outdoor terrace and upper balcony / rooftop seating area. The house across the island, meanwhile, offers a cosy, furnished retreat in which friendly conversation can be had in the conservatory or a game of backgammon enjoyed in the lounge, while upstairs a photographer’s studio awaits the return of its owner.
It is on the main island that the rich detail – evident throughout the setting – really comes into its own, Luane and Gorba having worked hard to imbue the island with a rich sense of life with details large and small. Signs of human habitation can be found all around the beach, as well as at the house and café (and the latter’s nearby neighbour); there are multiple places to sit and pass the time from deck chairs under parasols to lounger behind windbreaks to a touch of Californian surfin’ sixties, courtesy of an old VW camper offering a little beach-top surf retreat with a waiting picnic (and not the only picnic spot awaiting discovery at that!). Further around the sands to the north sits a tuk-tuk van both continuing the surf theme and offering a cosy retreat of its own.
Up on the island’s back, meanwhile, sheep peacefully graze, birds sing and pose on boughs as if awaiting their close-ups, butterflies add their own splashes of colour among the flowers, while swings, hammocks and canopied loungers offer places to set and contemplate the view and the setting. Overhead, an eagle circles on the updraughts created by the passage of wind up and over the island’s spine, aloof from the cawing and crying of the gulls over and on the beach.
Visually appealing, rich in colour, details and ambient sounds, Maison de L’amitie remains a thoroughly engaging visit.
SLurl Details
- Maison de L’amitie (Dekade, rated Moderate)
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