Domaine du Rayol

English translation

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History

In 1909, the colonial explorer and banker Alfred-Théodore Courmes (1859-1934) purchased the lands which he would make into the Rayol estate. In 1910, he commissioned a first villa, executed in eclectic taste by the architect Guillaume Tronchet. It appears that it was to Courmes himself that one owes the layout of the park between 1910 and 1914. From 1925 to 1927, at the request of Madame Courmes, a second villa, called the Rayolet, was built by Tronchet in the neo-Provençal style. In 1939, the estate was purchased by the aircraft manufacturer Henry Potez who immediately had work undertaken by his architect Raoul Minjoz (author of the Potez villa at Méaulte: see entry PA00116273). The first villa of 1910 was modified, while the Rayolet villa was enlarged and remodelled internally in Art Deco style. After the war, around 1950, Potez had Minjoz build the Fisherman's Pavilion, on the edge of the beach. In 1989 the estate, in a state of advanced abandonment, was acquired by the Conservatoire de l'espace littoral et des rivages lacustres. The villa of 1925 is constructed in reinforced concrete, combining regional and modernist elements with Art Deco decoration.