ANOTHER WAY TO INHABIT THE WORLD
Passages, paths of exploration.
Two places growing from the work of Éric Roux Reiffsteck, farmer-perfumer and landscape designer.
THE ENGINE OF VILLA ALCHEMIA
It begins with the work of Éric Roux Reiffsteck, farmer-perfumer and landscape designer: cultivating, composing landscapes and fragrances, creating passages and paths of exploration. Villa Alchemia gives this practice a place to be lived and shared.
Common Ground is its engine of research and practice. The Living School opens these paths to others through walks, conversations, the podcast and seminars. Fragrance creations and cinema offer other ways to experience and perceive the living world.
Understand Common Ground ↗COMMON GROUND / TERRAIN D’ENTENTE
The engine of research and practice.
From landscape to shared knowledge.
Research brings the places to life.
Life in the places feeds the research.
Common Ground explores relationships between living systems, people and digital intelligence. It begins with a real environment: soil, water, plants, seasons, gestures and the people who inhabit it.
At Villa Alchemia, this approach connects what we observe with what we learn, make and share. A conversation can begin in the vegetable garden, become a question for a seminar, then return to the field as a new observation.
Notes, sounds, images and measurements are traces to interpret together. Digital tools help retrieve and compare them; context and direct experience of the place remain essential.
Explore Common Ground research ↗Éric’s work at ericroux.nexus ↗Begin with the work of the farmer-perfumer and landscape designer: cultivate, observe materials and compose paths through the landscape. Ask a question and keep a record.
Bring observations into dialogue with knowledge, experience and digital tools.
Share discoveries through The Living School, the podcast and creative work. Return to the field to observe what changes.
TWO ADDRESSES, ONE SHARED THREAD
From landscape to conversation.
Two ways to come together.
01 — THE LANDESCHÂTEAU DE BEYLONGUEThe orchard, vegetable garden and indoor spaces host a shared inquiry: learning from the living world. A showroom to discover Paysan Parfumeur fragrances, and rooms to extend your time here.
Opening spring 2027 ↗
02 — PARISPARIS SAINT-BERNARDThe library becomes a place for learning, recording and conversation. Paris Saint-Bernard also hosts the Paysan Parfumeur showroom: a space to discover our fragrance creations and the products we make ourselves.
Spring & autumn 2027 ↗ONE PRINCIPLE, MANY WAYS TO EXPERIENCE IT
Exploring Natural Intelligence
The landscape as a path of exploration.
Conversation as a way of sharing.
A roaming school, from books to paths.
The Living School is Common Ground’s setting for shared learning. It connects conversations, the podcast, seminars and workshops. The Saint-Bernard library, Beylongue’s indoor spaces, the orchard or the vegetable garden can all become its setting — and recording set.
Natural Intelligence is our common thread: learning to observe the living world, work with it, exchange knowledge and return to the field to test what we have understood.
Listen, learn, share ↓The Sun Sun Studio podcast carries the voices and questions that emerge in these places.
Seminars and workshops extend the conversation through observation and hands-on practice.
The field nourishes the questions; the traces we gather let us revisit and share them.
WHAT BRINGS US TOGETHER
A path of exploration through the eyes of the farmer-perfumer and landscape designer. Walk, pause, smell and observe relationships between plants, soil, light and the ways we use a place. A field notebook gathers traces of the experience: words, drawings, sounds and questions.
The route, duration and practical arrangements will be announced with the first dates.
Explore botanical materials, compare perceptions and write from a scent. An encounter between fragrance practice, memory and storytelling.
The selected materials and participation details will be shared with the programme.
Open the places to complementary practices: landscape, botany, craft, writing, sound and cinema. Each Classroom encounter begins with practical knowledge to share, guided by the same principle: Exploring Natural Intelligence.
First workshop planned in Beylongue for summer 2027. The theme, duration and guests are being developed.
PAYSAN PARFUMEUR · BEYLONGUE & PARIS
Two showrooms.
An encounter with the creations.
Fragrance can also be discovered in a place, through its materials and the people who compose it.
At Château de Beylongue and Paris Saint-Bernard, our showrooms offer a place to experience Paysan Parfumeur’s fragrance creations and discover the products we make ourselves.
The work of the farmer-perfumer and landscape designer continues in these creations. From landscape to material, from material to fragrance: scent becomes another way to explore a place and what it awakens in us.
Opening planned for spring 2027. Featured collections, hours and visiting arrangements to be announced.
Discover Paysan Parfumeur creations ↗TAKE YOUR TIME · BEYLONGUE
Four rooms in Beylongue for staying on site. Availability, rates and rental arrangements will be shared before reservations open.
The chai brings farming, work and life together. It also includes a suite that can, for example, accommodate a visiting practitioner.
The rooms make seminars and workshops with a stay possible. The first workshop is planned for summer 2027; accommodation inclusions, separate bookings, duration and meals remain to be defined.
COMMON GROUND · A SHARED PRACTICE
Create
passages.
Explore.
My work: creating passages and paths of exploration.
Through landscape, through scent, through our relationship with the living world.
FIRST SEASON
The seasons are set.
Exact dates are being prepared.
SPRING2027
CHÂTEAU DE BEYLONGUE
Opening the place and discovering the approach.
SPRING2027
PARIS SAINT-BERNARD
The first programme of encounters and salons.
SUMMER2027
CHÂTEAU DE BEYLONGUE
A time for practice and shared learning. Theme and duration to follow.
AUTUMN2027
PARIS SAINT-BERNARD
A second programme to build on the discoveries.
Reservations are not yet open. Prices, capacities and practical arrangements will be announced with the dates.
THE BOOK · AHAHA ÉDITIONS
From cinema to the land,
a journey of transformation.
In this autobiographical essay, Éric recounts his move from cinema to a new life as a farmer and then a farmer-perfumer, in an olive grove in the Alpes-Maritimes. A story of learning through the seasons, through doubt, practical work and discovery.
The book offers another way into the journey that Villa Alchemia continues today: learning to live differently, building connections and exploring a relationship with the living world.
Autobiographical essay · 172 pages · 12 × 18 cm · French-language edition
Discover and order from the publisher ↗Ordering, pricing and delivery terms are available on the Ahaha Éditions website.
VOICES, IMAGES, QUESTIONS
SUN SUN STUDIO · PODCAST
Exploring Natural Intelligence
A Sun Sun Studio podcast, at the heart of Villa Alchemia’s places.
One conversation table, many settings: the Saint-Bernard library, Beylongue’s indoor spaces, its orchard or vegetable garden. The podcast shares The Living School’s questions; seminars offer a way to explore them together on site.
First recordings and release dates to be announced. Any events with an audience will be specified in the programme.
CINEMA · IN DEVELOPMENT
What can we still share when familiar certainties fade? In Remembering Human, this same inquiry takes a fictional form: a living school learns through gestures, people and landscape.
Research brings real settings together with AI-generated visual extensions. A test scene about observation and memory has been prepared. Location scouting and filming remain to be carried out.
The project is in development. No filming schedule has been announced.
FRAGRANCE CREATIONS · OLFACTORY LANDSCAPES
Fragrance opens another passage through this shared inquiry. Plants, materials and compositions extend the work of the farmer-perfumer and landscape designer, from sensing a place to creating a sensory experience.
Discover our fragrance creations and the products we make ourselves on the Paysan Parfumeur website, then experience their scents in our Beylongue and Paris showrooms.
Explore the perfumes and creations ↗Discover the creations in our places ↑VILLA ALCHEMIA
See you in spring 2027.
Until then, explore the practice these places grow from.