Essential and Modern — A Lake Garda Home Wrapped in Soft Contrasts
Essential and Modern reimagines an apartment on Lake Garda in Italy as a refined retreat for a single client. Zenucchi Design Code shapes a quiet yet expressive interior, threading custom millwork, Italian brands, and carefully tuned lighting into a cohesive narrative. The result is a lakefront home where open living, crafted circulation, and a serene bedroom wing hold equal weight in an atmosphere of understated ease.
Light folds across quarzite and antique fir.
From the open living area to the quieter bedroom wing, materials carry the eye along measured lines while discreet lighting traces the home’s architecture in soft bands of glow. Every gesture serves a single resident, so surfaces stay calm, circulation reads clearly, and each room lands as a composed scene rather than a passage in transit.
This is an apartment on Lake Garda in Italy, reshaped by Zenucchi Design Code into a custom interior for a man who lives alone. The project reads as a complete work, delivery “chiavi in mano,” yet it rests on a simple idea: pair sophistication with daily use instead of compromise. Furniture, lighting, and built-in elements work as one interior palette that balances warmth, reflection, and rigorous lines.
Layering The Living Core
The main room opens as a single volume where cooking, dining, and lounging share one continuous floor. At its center sits the Boffi island kitchen, with abete antico bases and a quarzite top that read as a grounded block against the wider room. Around it, a De Padova sofa and Cassina armchairs draw a relaxed seating group that orients toward a Porro wall system rather than a loose TV stand. That wall, in iron, mirror, and noce canaletto, folds storage, display, and a fireplace into one strong surface so the living area feels both generous and contained.
Dining As Social Anchor
Close to the conversation area, the dining table settles the room with the weight of Grey Emperador marble. Its polished plane gathers Porro chairs around a single sculptural mass, turning everyday meals into a small ritual. Above, a Flos suspension lamp drops a precise pool of light, separating the table from the broader open plan without closing it off. The effect is intimate yet connected, so a single guest or a larger group fits the same arrangement without strain.
A Corridor Of Quiet Storage
The route to the night area runs along a long corridor that works as more than a neutral hall. Custom storage lines one side, joined by iron sheet bookshelves whose thin profiles and dark finish add depth to the passage. LED profiles wash these elements with targeted light, bringing out texture and straight geometry while keeping the floor clear. A pivot door, also bespoke, marks the threshold between day and night zones, preserving continuity yet giving the bedroom wing its own calm identity.
Soft Tones In The Suite
The master bedroom leans into quiet tactility rather than visual noise. A Molteni&C leather bed introduces a supple, grounded centerpiece, its color sitting in gentle dialogue with the walls and flooring. Rimadesio bedside tables in matte glass bring a light-catching counterpoint, their surfaces catching diffused light rather than strong glare. Together they set a slower rhythm, so the room holds the day at a slight distance even when the corridor door stays open.
Bathrooms With Material Focus
In the bathrooms, resin cement clads walls and floors in continuous planes that keep joints to a minimum. Within this calm shell, Boffi fixtures in the main room organize the functional core, from the lavabo composition to a backlit mirror that extends light evenly across the user’s face. The guest bathroom shifts the mood with a green concrete column basin by Agape, a single strong object that anchors the compact room. Color, form, and finish do the work here, so storage and hardware can recede from view.
Across the apartment, lighting from Flos draws measured lines along ceilings, cabinets, and bookcases, while decorative lamps shape smaller pockets of atmosphere. Every composition, from the island to the corridor shelving, shows the same balance of clarity and warmth. As day gives way to evening over Lake Garda, Essential and Modern holds steady as a private interior, tuned to one life and enriched by material depth.
Photography courtesy of Zenucchi Design Code
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