French shoe designer Christian Louboutin, 58, has always been known for his drama. Even the fact that he sits down to lunch at his home in Melides, Portugal, a quiet coastal town about 80 miles south of Lisbon, requires visitors to participate in a performance of sorts. The concrete tabletop of his outdoor dining table has giant ceramic Tarot cards inserted into it, arranged like a service; guests are asked to choose the card with which they identify. "I am often the Sun or the Hermit," says Louboutin. Empress and Lovers are popular choices. "But no one ever wants to be the Hanged Man," he sighs, writes NYT Style Magazine.

Later this year, the designer will open a hotel in Melides, which will give him extra license to buy treasures. Recent impulse purchases include a fully gilded 19th-century Ottoman room interior he purchased in Spain. It is currently in storage awaiting a new home. "Don’t think about where you’re going to put it, because you probably don’t have a place,” Louboutin says of acquiring beautiful things. “But you may have a place later. I’ve been buying things like this for years.”

Almost every day he gets WhatsApp messages from several antique dealers and artisans; his most recent contact is the owner of an Armenian marble quarry who sends him pictures whenever he finds an exemplary piece of stone. “This one looks like a bad pistachio ice cream,” says Louboutin of a slab in a recent snapshot. “And I love this one, but I’m afraid it would make me feel hungry all the time: It looks like a piece of ham!”

He is thinking of commissioning a house that will include an Ottoman room and other large items he has stashed away. “The architect’s brief will be: I give you these five things, you have to invent something where everything will fit,” he says.

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