“I use the boat as a kind of laboratory,” says Biltgen. “It’s where I can test out new designs.” Shortly after they met in June 2005, French designer Charlotte Biltgen and her husband Cédric made a trip to a boatyard in Burgundy. It was there that an industrial barge he’d bought a few months earlier was in the embryonic stages of being transformed into their future home. “It was very rudimentary,” recalls Charlotte. “There was only the hull and the bargeman’s quarters. But, I was immediately seduced. I love unusual projects.”
Once the major structural work was complete, Cédric sailed the vessel through a total of 169 locks to its current location on the banks of the Île de Puteaux to the west of Paris, which was already home to…
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Architectural Digest (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025