llabb renovates 1930s seafront apartment in Levanto

Overlooking the beach in Levanto, a Ligurian town on Italy’s northwest coast near the Cinque Terre, Surf House transforms a 100 square metre apartment inside a 1930s villa into a permanent family home. Designed by llabb, the renovation reimagines the interior through a continuous system of bespoke millwork that responds both to the constraints of the historic building and to the rhythms of life by the sea.

The apartment occupies the raised ground floor of a villa known locally as the Blondet House, part of the early twentieth century seafront development that lines Levanto’s waterfront. While the renovation introduces a completely new spatial organization, original architectural elements remain, including the building’s distinctive polychrome marble entrance ramp and a structural system defined by load bearing partitions that limited the possibilities for alteration.

The project began with an ambitious brief. A family from California sought to accommodate three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a study for remote work, a generous kitchen, and an open living area within just over one hundred square metres.

Rather than forcing a radical transformation, llabb worked with the existing structure, reorganising the apartment around a clearer hierarchy of spaces. Bedrooms and a compact study are positioned along the quieter northern side of the plan, while bathrooms and service spaces occupy the central band. To the south, the living room and kitchen open toward the sea, creating a social heart directly connected to the landscape beyond.

A key intervention involved rethinking the entrance sequence. What was once a fragmented corridor dividing the seafront rooms has been transformed into a unifying axis. Large steel-framed openings now connect the living room and kitchen, improving circulation and allowing views, light, and daily life to flow across the apartment.

At the centre of the project is a continuous system of custom millwork crafted from oak and finished in deep blue. Running through the apartment like a long wave extending toward the horizon, it functions simultaneously as storage, furniture, circulation device, and architectural framework.

The intervention integrates an extraordinary range of functions into a single spatial gesture. Kitchen cabinetry, dining benches, bookshelves, wardrobes, desks, storage compartments, and beds are all absorbed into the same continuous element, bringing coherence to a compact floor plan while establishing a strong visual identity.

More than a piece of joinery, the system becomes the project’s primary architectural device, organizing movement and defining the character of every room.

Wood has long been central to llabb’s practice, and here it becomes both a structural and narrative material. Throughout the apartment, details subtly reference Levanto’s maritime culture and the surf community that has become part of the town’s contemporary identity.

Curved benches supported by metal elements reminiscent of surfboard fins, rounded profiles in the children’s room, and carefully shaped recesses introduce a sense of playfulness without slipping into literal representation. The language remains restrained yet unmistakably connected to the seaside context.

Although compact, the apartment feels remarkably open. Visual connections between rooms play a crucial role in this perception. Carefully positioned openings, alignments, and framed views maintain a sense of separation while allowing light and sightlines to travel across the plan.

The result is a home that balances practicality with atmosphere, responding equally to the needs of a contemporary family and to the character of its coastal setting.

Surf House in Levanto is ultimately a project about adaptation. It adapts a historic apartment to contemporary living, translates carpentry into an architectural system, and creates a dialogue between domestic life and the landscape beyond its windows.

Through a careful combination of spatial reorganisation, bespoke craftsmanship, and material continuity, llabb has transformed a constrained footprint into a residence deeply rooted in its place. The sea remains constantly present, not only through the views, but through the forms, materials, and rhythms that shape everyday life within the apartment.

Project Credit

Project Name: Surf House in Levanto
Location: Levanto, Italy
Completion Year: 2025
Design firm: llabb / @lllab._architects
Photo: Anna Positano / Studio Campo
Communication partner and Press office: The Architecture Curator