Château de l'Ermitage (Château Malet)

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château Malet, also known as the Château de l'Ermitage, is an eclectic villa built between 1894 and 1896 in Cap-d'Ail for Sir Edward Malet, British ambassador in Berlin, who in 1892 had acquired a thirteen-hectare plot in the eastern part of the commune. The plans were drawn up by the Danish architect Hans-Georg Tersling, designer of the Métropole-Hôtel in Monaco (1888) and of several villas at Cap-Martin. The U-shaped building combines a semicircular Ionic portico to the south with a rectangular Corinthian portico to the north, surmounted by a domed monopteral campanile; its style draws on European palatial references, notably Rastrelli's palace in Saint Petersburg and the Zwinger in Dresden. A 160 m² ballroom with an Italian-style painted ceiling is among its most remarkable features. Accidentally bombed during the Second World War, the villa lost part of its central block; only the northern half survives. In 1961 a new villa was built perpendicular to the damaged building, while the British landscape architect Russell Page redesigned the garden. A restoration campaign carried out in 2000 restored the wall decorations and the painted ceiling of the ballroom.