VILLA LES BRUYERES
Audio guide in English
Address: 1044 route de la Corniche
Sponsor: Louis-Albert Hardon
Architect: Unknown
Date: 1870
Property of Louis Albert Hardon, an engineer who worked on the drilling of the Suez Canal, this square villa with pavilion roofs dates from 1870: it is the oldest residence built by the sea.
A building for the caretaker, a saddlery, a shed and a wash house complete the ensemble, in the heart of a garden crisscrossed by narrow paths lined with porphyry paving stones. Acanthus, myrtle, mastic, rosemary, laurel, heather and centuries-old pines highlight the Mediterranean style of the building.
The owner devoted himself to painting and had a workshop built on the cliffs, with a room totally open to the Mediterranean and where he could compose superb seascapes. He gave to his friend, Jean-Louis Hamon, a painter representative of the neo-Greek movement, a plot of his land on which he would build his house.
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