A Paris Power Couple Opens a Country Retreat for Hemp Lovers in a Former 19th-century Inn

At Victoire de Pourtalès and Benjamin Eymère’s country home outside Paris, dinner-table conversation is as likely to revolve around crop cycles as it is around art.

The former gallery director and her media executive husband have set up an ambitious project in the rolling fields surrounding the village of Le Val-Saint-Germain, the historic home of the Pourtalès family.

Part farm, part art residency, 91530 Le Marais is a hub for research into the uses of hemp, from fashion and beauty to art and architecture. Now the couple have expanded into hospitality, with the opening of a boutique residence in a former 19th-century inn.

A descendant of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, Napoleon’s foreign minister, de Pourtalès was raised at the nearby family seat, Le Château du Marais.

“It’s always been a gathering place for artists,” she says, noting that her grandfather Gaston Palewski, a close associate of Charles de Gaulle during and after World War II, was close to Pablo Picasso and André Malraux, the French writer turned culture minister. “We were fortunate to grow up with intellectuals.”

The château was sold in 2022 to Czech billionaire businessman Daniel Kretinsky, who is turning it into a hotel, but de Pourtalès is keeping the family tradition alive.

Since settling in an 18^th-century carriage house in the village just after the pandemic, she and Eymère have invited artists to explore their property, which includes horse paddocks, an abandoned clay quarry, a former brick factory, and acres and acres of land.

While they pursue their vision of a short-circuit, low-carbon and pesticide-free agriculture, they regularly host exhibitions in their two cavernous barns, one of which houses a pottery kiln.

Edith Dekyndt, whose work features in the Pinault Collection, buried a large piece of cloth in one of the fields as part of her exhibition in 2021, while Bianca Bondi and Guillaume Bouisset created a mineral pond installation with salt-thriving bacteria.

“I’m really interested in showing art in a rural setting,” de Pourtalès says.

A cofounder of VNH Gallery in Paris, she was a director of David Zwirner’s Paris space until 2020. Eymère is chief executive officer of media company L’Officiel Inc. and chief metaverse officer of its parent company, AMTD World Media and Entertainment Group, and cofounded the sake brand Heavensake.

While it might appear like they’re growing their new venture organically, Eymère says they have it all mapped out. “We have a 10-year plan for our project,” he says.

At its core lies the idea that farmers need to diversify, at a time when a growing number of them are staging protests to alert public opinion to their financial distress. “Public authorities are pushing for more sustainable farming, but it doesn’t pay enough,” Eymère says. “We must find new sources of revenue for farmers.”

Which brings us to their latest venture, which they are calling Hemphouse. Rather than a traditional bed and breakfast, they see it as an extension of their residency program: a place for artists, scientists and aficionados to explore the benefits of green agriculture.

“We wanted to build this space to welcome people to the farm and demonstrate the different uses of hemp,” says Eymère.

They worked with architect Eleonora Santucci to renovate the eight-room inn, which had stood empty since 2007. The decor is a mix of family heirlooms, contemporary art and a unique ingredient: their own brand of hempcrete, a bio-composite material made from the inner woody fibers of the hemp plant and a lime-based binder. 

The material is used in several ground floor rooms, including an exhibition area with an inaugural show of paintings on hemp canvas by French artist Edgar Sarin.

A Green Being wellness retreat is planned from June 28 to 30 with yoga teacher Anna de Pahlen and luxury facialist Melinda Bognar.

“You can get a massage with hemp oil, you can dine amid an exhibition of ceramics made with local clay, you can ride horses, you can visit our bamboo plantation and you can practice yoga in a hempcrete cube,” Eymère says.

With shared bathrooms, Hemphouse has the feel of a family home. There are reminders of the Pourtalès family’s aristocratic past at every turn: a bust of Talleyrand sits in a corner of the dining room, and a painting by her grandfather Louis de Mandat-Grancey hangs in one of the bedrooms.

“There’s a few family heirlooms, but we didn’t want to give it a pompous 18^th century feel,” she demurs. “We wanted it to keep it very simple, a place where people feel free to create.”

Dotted among antique prints and sketches by Belle Époque caricaturist Sem are works by contemporary artists including Eric Croes, Christine Safa, Aurèce Vettier, Chris Martin and Sam Falls.  

In the entrance, a Carlo Scarpa chandelier salvaged from a Paris cinema is artfully juxtaposed with one of Sarin’s paintings and a marble column topped with a stone fruit basket.

Eymère says that being just 35 miles south of Paris is a major asset, making it convenient for people to drop in for short stays, and providing easy access for brands interested in working with Le Marais on joint ventures.

“With the opening of Hemphouse, we’re entering the second part of the residency cycle,” he says. “We think there’s interesting things to be done with large Paris-based fashion or luxury brands and we’re not far.”

For spring 2024, its Studio Sativa textile design arm collaborated with Taiwanese label Shiatzy Chen on a collection made with pure hemp fabric, which is touted as breathable, hypoallergenic and antibacterial, in addition to being highly resistant.

Its Hempliquid cosmetic arm has produced its own face oil in collaboration with Givaudan perfumer Yann Vasnier, and partnered with luxury natural skin-care brand Tata Harper on a limited-edition body oil.

For an upcoming project with a luxury brand, Le Marais will plant a small plot of hemp that it will harvest by hand, though Eymère says it has the capacity to scale up if a fast fashion player comes knocking. But it will never sell just the raw material.

“There’s always a partnership, a thought process, a message,” he says. “We have to give a poetic, economic and environmental value to the product of our land.”