A Concrete Home in Rural Belgium

Smitten from the start with a 1970s concrete villa in rural Belgium, a resident and her designer embark on a sensitive renovation that excises the bad (carpeted walls, dark rooms) and highlights the good (idyllic setting, statement architecture).
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Brutalist buildings aren’t everybody’s design ideal, but when Nathalie Vandemoortele first saw the fortresslike house she now shares with her sons, Merlin, 14, and Cesar, 12, it was love at first sight. "I saw a real estate ad with a photo showing the view from the beautiful lake, with a sequence of ponds leading to this amazing building with round towers like a castle," she recalls. "I couldn’t sleep until it was mine."

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Jane Szita
Amsterdam-based contributing editor Jane Szita took the train to Ghent–three hours away, but a very different Franco-Flemish culture.

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