Memories of a Trip of a Lifetime to France!

How do you share the source of a lifetime of inspiration and a connection with a culture that has deeply influenced your life and business? If you’re Cindy Smith, founder of Circa, you frequent the brocantes and markets of France, deepening the relationships with friends and vendors there. You go farther and deeper, you wake up earlier to find the most beautiful architectural fragments or to get first dibs at antiques to bring home to eager shoppers.

If you’re Cindy Smith, grandmother of six, you plan the trip of a lifetime for your entire family, securing a quintessential Provencal farmhouse as home base for visits to lavender fields, cathedrals, vineyards and monuments. By afternoon you retreat to your Mas in the Midi and sharing meals en plein air and dips in the pool. 

Having already wooed her daughter, Whitney Smith Johnson and her daughter-in-law, Heather Smith, to partner in the business of designing beautiful spaces and selling hand-selected European antiques, the matriarch’s itch to share her love of France has, admittedly, always been strong.

But it didn’t take a lot of arm-twisting from even the youngest among her grandchildren to jump on this idea of a grand trip together. “Whitney, the girls and I have a sweet running joke between us,” says Heather. ‘Are we French yet?’”

Before returning home, Cindy and her family capped the already extraordinary trip to France with a few days in Paris. An elevator ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower, a night cruise on a bateau mouche on the Seine, a picnic at Versailles, shopping at Merci and Isabelle Marant and a dinner at Hotel Coste seeded fresh memories of a place that has offered her endless inspiration.