The amazing Villa
This amazing villa was built by Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschid between 1906 and 1912.
Located between Nice and Monaco, overlooking the Mediterranean, the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild is a magnificent palace surrounded by nine themed gardens.
The architecture is inspired by villas of the Italian Renaissance harbouring a host of artworks and surrounded by extraordinary gardens.
It’s filled with beautiful furniture, carpets, paintings, tapestry and other objects as a collection of Eighteenth-Century Silk Garments, Chinese silk and porcelain, collections of terracotta sculptures and it holds Beatrice’s art collection of over 5,000 works of art.
The house has 2 floors. On the ground floor you find reception rooms and on the 1st floor are Beatrice bedroom and guest bedrooms. We did the visit ourselves with help from the app “Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild” which was very detailed and informative.
My favourite room is The Blue Room.
A spacious room with a view over the sea and Villefranche, and has gardens on three sides heading south and west. It is decorated with a mix of French and Italian pieces from the late 18th and early 19th century in light blue colours.
The dream garden
The garden is actually nine themed gardens:
Beatrice designed herself the French garden in the shape of a ship’s deck, decorated with waterfalls and ponds, with the Temple of Love at the bow.
The Spanish garden takes the form of a covered patio, crossed by a narrow channel filled with plants and surrounded on the three other sides by fine Corinthian arcades.
The Florentine garden is the only remnant of the huge Italian garden that Béatrice had planted. A large horseshoe staircase contains a neoclassical marble angel in its niche.
The Stone garden is a disparate collection of works of art that did not find a place inside the Villa: arches, fountains, canopies, bas-reliefs from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, monstrous gargoyles, stone grotesques, carnivalesque gnomes from Provence.
The Japanese Garden is known as “Cho-Seki-Tei”, which means “garden where one can calmly listen to the pleasant sound of the waves at twilight”. In this “zen world”, water is everywhere.
The Exotic Garden is the kingdom of succulents and gigantic cacti. The various species of agave have achieved an impressive size over the years, and so too have the barbary figs that collapse under the weight of their flowers in the spring.
The Rose Garden is an enchantment for the senses. Numerous varieties fill the air with their fragrance at this far end of the garden. There are a hundred varieties of rose growing here, one of which bears the name of the Baroness.
The various paths of the Provençal garden are bordered with olive and pine trees bent by the wind, lavender and agapanthus.
Beatrice and the Rotschild family
Beatrice Ephrussi de Rotschild was a fascinating women for her time (1864-1934). She was the daughter of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, banker and great art collector, and the richest man in France at that time.
At 19 she married Maurice Ephrussi, a Russian banker living in Paris, friend of her parents and 15 years older than her. Maurice was a gentleman sportsman and that attracted Beatrice, who very much enjoyed sports herself. She was a modern woman and her idea of entertainment was quite original for a woman of her time. She joined a flying club and attended boxing matches. She skated, rode and played tennis. And loved to drive the car herself even if she of course had a driver.
Their marriage was not happy and Maurice cheated on her regularly. At 25 he infected her with a very serious illness that prevented her from having children, and that changed her life and values. Maurice gamed and played the stock market and lost a lot of money. She separated from him in 1904 at the age of 40. When her father died in 1905 she inherited an immense fortune and decided to build a residence at St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
Beatrice loved animals and they were everywhere in the house and the garden. Her favourites were a little dog and two monkeys.
Beatrice gambled a good deal and invited her friends to play chess, bridge and poker. She was also a frequent visitor to the casino in Monte-Carlo, gamling clubs were closed to women in France until 1918, but not in Monaco.
The Rothschild family is a European family of German Jewish origin that established European banking and finance houses from the late eighteenth century.
The Rothshild family is still famous and active in banking and real estate, but equally famous for viticulture owners of some of the world’s most prestigious wines as Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Lafitte. The Rothschild family has been in the winemaking industry for 150 years.
Especially, Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Lafite Rothschild are classified as Premier Cru Classé.
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