Day 388 (Saturday)
We had to walk up to the apartment this morning to make sure that everything was spot on for the American guests who were arriving today. They were landing in Nice at 10.30am and rather naively thought they’d be in Villefranche at around 11am – have they ever landed in an airport before? We arrived there at 11am ensuring that we had enough time to put everything straight. This is the wonderful swimming pool they can use – so jealous!
They eventually arrived at 1pm having got lost a number of times. They seemed nice enough and we showed them around the apartment and gave them some advice about where to visit in the area. From here we walked to Beaulieu and for the first time in as long as I can remember this mansion has been closed up and today there were some windows open – this made me happy as it seems wicked that such a place should be empty.
We stopped to eat a sandwich and to admire the view; over the years and during this year I have taken a million photos of this view yet I never tire of it and keep taking photos of it.
Whilst admiring this magnificent view a young French girl asked Huw to take a photo of her and she was a ridiculous poser. I had to look the other way to stop myself from laughing out loud as she took her time to compose herself before turning to the camera for the shot. I don’t know how Huw did it without laughing!
It was very hot today and the long walk uphill to find Rothschild’s villa was quite tough. You may remember that we tried to find this villa a few weeks ago and failed so we were quite concerned about finding it today so when we did find it we were really relieved and it was well worth the effort, it was a real wow. When we got home later Huw found this website so the wording isn’t mine but the many, many photos are and Huw edited a video of the fountains that go off every 20 minutes to music – it was so beautiful that it gave me goosebumps despite the heat.
THE VILLA FROM YESTERDAY TO TODAY
1864
The birth of Béatrice de Rothschild
Béatrice was the daughter of the baron, Alphonse de Rothschild, a banker and renowned art collector. At the age of 19, she married Maurice Ephrussi, a Parisian banker of Russian origin, 15 years her senior, and a friend of her parents. The marriage quickly turned sour for Béatrice. She contracted a serious illness from Maurice, which prevented her from having children. Maurice was a gambler and in 1904, his debts totalled over 12 million gold francs, the equivalent of 30 million euros today.
1904
Maurice and Béatrice divorce
Worried about the future, the Rothschild family decided to bring Maurice to court in order to file for a divorce. They won the case and in June 1904, after 21 years of marriage, the divorce of Béatrice de Rothschild and Maurice Ephrussi was officially pronounced. Béatrice then turned her attention to one of her great passions: collecting art. Béatrice had inherited her keen eye and her taste for beautiful objects from her family, renowned for the remarkable collections built up by several of her relatives over the years. Her motto was ‘Ars Patriae Decus’: ‘Art is the honour of the fatherland’. She acquired many items—a Tiepolo ceiling, eighteenth-century furniture, a games table that had once belonged to Marie Antoinette, and a rug commissioned by Louis XIV—to furnish the future villa.
1905
Beatrice discovers Cap Ferrat
Béatrice's father died in 1905 and the Baroness inherited his immense fortune. That same year, she decided to construct her dream home in Cap Ferrat. When she first discovered this plot of land, she was immediately seduced by the beauty of the surroundings. However at the time, the site was rather inaccessible—it was little more than a barren rocky area traversed by a mule track. When she learned of the sale of the terrain and that the Belgian King, Léopold II, was also interested in it, she purchased it without hesitation.
1905
Work begins on the gardens
Work on the gardens began immediately and took seven years to complete. The Baroness called upon the talents of several renowned personalities such as Harold Peto and Achille Duchêne—highly prized landscape architects in Europe and the United States at the time. The site chosen for the Villa was not particularly conducive to the creation of a garden. Indeed, creating a park on a rocky promontory covered with trees and exposed to strong winds was quite a tour de force. The Baroness had the ground dynamited and large quantities of earth were brought in to relevel the surface. Hundreds of Italian workers were hired for these large-scale relevelling works.
1907
Work begins on the Villa
Béatrice Ephrussi was especially fastidious when it came to the choice of an architect. She refused projects submitted by a dozen or so leading architects, considering them as ‘idiotic’. The projects proposed by Claude Girault, architect of the Petit Palais and Henri-Paul Nénot, recipient of the Grand Prix de Rome and designer of the new Sorbonne, were also rejected. Architect Jacques-Marcel Auburtin was eventually entrusted with the design of the Villa, having scrupulously met all of Béatrice Ephrussi’s requirements. He was assisted by Aaron Messiah, an architect from Nice who would go on to build several villas for the aristocracy.
1912
Landscaping the gardens
When the Baroness moved into the Villa, four hectares of the gardens were still to be landscaped. The Baroness had given priority to those areas of the grounds visible from the house, i.e. the French formal garden.
She spared no expense or effort when it came to landscaping the grounds of the Villa, and even created a veritable mobile and living decor in her endeavour to design the French formal garden. It was not uncommon to see her employees hidden in pyramids of green cardboard, representing cypress trees, or manoeuvring long strips of silver, grey and green fabric in an attempt to determine the exact location of the ponds, driveways and flower beds…
1912
The Baroness moves into the Villa
Béatrice made the Villa her winter residence and came here regularly for a period of ten or so years, dividing her time between Paris, Monaco and Deauville.
The Baroness Ephrussi de Rothschild made her Villa a true haven for art collectors with porcelain, furniture and paintings by the Great Masters. The Villa was decorated in the Rothschild style, i.e., with the best from each era, resulting in a somewhat eclectic mix!
The Baroness furnished her Villa directly at the Gare de Beaulieu. A train arrive from Paris loaded with furniture and works of art. The Baroness would select the artworks for her Villa on the platform of the train station! Those works not selected for the Villa Ephrussi would furnish her villa in Monaco.
1933
Béatrice bequeaths her collection to the Académie des Beaux-Arts
A year before her death, Beatrice bequeathed her Villa and the entirety of its collections to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The Académie also received the 7 hectares of land and some 5,000 works of art.
1934
The death of Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild
Suffering from tuberculosis, Béatrice retired to Davos in Switzerland where she passed away. One of her relatives would describe Béatrice on her deathbed in the following words: ‘she was still beautiful, with the snowy halo of her hair surrounding the deathly pallor of her face’.
That same year, the landscape architect Louis Marchand was entrusted with designing the themed gardens of the estate: a Spanish, Florentine, Japanese, and Mexican garden. Such variety would surely have pleased the first occupant of the premises. He also had water put in the fountains and renovated the French formal gardens.
1945
Following the Second World War
During the war, Cap Ferrat was deserted by its inhabitants and the area was mined. The Villa remained unattended and the gardens abandoned for two years. When Louis Marchand returned to the Villa after the war, he quickly began work on the badly neglected gardens, soon restoring them to their pre-war splendour. The building was also renovated, and a new colour scheme chosen for the facades: once ochre yellow, the Villa was painted in reddish-pink hues, providing it with a Venetian air.
1985
A harsh winter
This year was marked by a particularly harsh winter. As the Villa’s lavish gardens are more exposed to the cold wind than other gardens on the cape, the estate lost many of its tall, beautiful trees and almost all of the Mexican garden.
The Marnier Lapostolle family, who lived in the neighbouring villa and were friends of the former head gardener and the owners of a remarkable collection of cacti and rare plants, offered many of the plants from their own collection to the Villa Ephrussi in an effort to restore the devastated Mexican garden, today referred to as the ‘exotic garden’.
Culturespaces becomes delegatee
The Académie des Beaux-Arts entrusted the management of the site to Culturespaces. The latter has overseen the renovation of the Villa’s interior, and the restoration of the gardens, respecting the original plan designed by Louis Marchand. Culturespaces is responsible for organizing several events at the site, including the Fête des Roses et des Plantes (Rose and Plant Festival) showcasing the Villa’s splendid gardens.
It’s me now – I hope you enjoyed that informative little spiel about Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild. At the end of our visit we watched the fountain dancing to music twice.
And here is Huw’s video
And I rather liked this shiny roof
As we found the coastal path there was a great view of Kerylos, the villa we went to last week but we both think that today’s villa was the best.
We sat on the beach in Beaulieu for an hour or so and Huw went for a swim. I paddled but I didn’t have my cozzie on but the water was quite warm so I’m planning on having my first dip of the summer tomorrow in La Darse beach. Huw has discovered a new app on his phone that tells him how far he has walked each day and I’m proud to announce that we walked for nine kilometres today.
We got the bus home and our wonderful day was nicely rounded off by a firework display.
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