Villa Stella

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

In the upper part of the spa town of Royat, at the corner of boulevard Barrieu and avenue Jean Heitz. This part of the town situated below old Royat was developed from 1880 to 1914 essentially by families of doctors, who had their villas built, surrounded by small parks for the finest ones. Apartment buildings and hotels are concentrated a little lower down. Villa Stella occupies approximately the centre of a plot closed off from the street by an imposing boundary fence. An outbuilding occupies the south-west corner of the plot. To the original square nucleus was added in 1983 a small low wing resolutely contemporary in style, set against a blank wall. This villa was built in 1911 (date engraved above the door) for the account of a certain Madame Moutaud. The sculptor Mabru signed the façade. This commission corresponded to the very beginning of his career. He had just settled in Royat, aged 29. The villa is composed of a raised ground floor and a noble first floor covered with a flat roof. It presents a classical plan: central vestibule, staircase within the building in continuation, reception room on the street (sitting rooms on either side of the vestibule), dining room and rear kitchen, bedrooms on the floor above. The main façade justifies the interest that can be attached to this building. It comprises three bays on two levels, of neo-Louis XVI inspiration tempered by Art Nouveau as regards the sculptural decoration. The central bay is preceded by a perron whose balusters feature two monolithic piles with ribboned and sinuous floral decoration. The double-leafed glazed door is surmounted at the height of the first floor by a large oblong table sculpted in the round, representing a young woman with hip sway, one shoulder bare, carrying a young child on her arm; a second child, somewhat older, stands at her feet, brandishing a bouquet of flowers. The two children with plump forms evoke Italian putti. The young woman with a smiling face, surrounded by foliage forming something like a parasol in the background, recalls, in turn, by her face and silhouette, Art Nouveau characters (statuettes - posters). The symmetrical lateral bays are pierced at ground floor level with a large glazed opening with stone guard-rail, on the floor above with a window with balcony furnished with support ironwork with swollen belly, ornamented with friezes of posts, foliage, and bearing the monogram M for Moutaud, name of the first owner. Tied ribbons, friezes and cascades of flowers frame these openings in the neo-Louis XVI spirit. A balustrade with central pediment terminates this façade, signed Raoul Mabru, sculptor. The other elevations are of no interest. This villa, built shortly before the First World War, is one of the last examples of a bourgeois house designed still in the spirit of the 19th century, but incorporating the decorative vocabulary then in fashion. Good-taste neo-Louis XVI serves as the architectural foundation for the project. The decoration is borrowed, through the sculptor Mabru, from the Art Nouveau spirit, but a tamed Art Nouveau, anecdotal, where the picturesque becomes allegorical. Thanks to the talent of Raoul Mabru, villa Stella nevertheless takes on exceptional interest. Its sculptural decoration harmoniously fuses with the architecture, both in the façade (piles of the perron, niche sheltering the young woman and her children, draperies and various garlands) and on the interior (stucco of ceilings and door panels). This local artist, chiefly known for his public commissions (war memorials, garden statues) signs here one of his masterpieces.