Villa Kérylos – Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France - Atlas Obscura

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Villa Kérylos

A reconstruction of a classic mansion on the island of Delos was designed for a historian and archaeologist.  

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Jewish historian and archaeologist Théodore Reinach was also a politician from 1906 to 1914. The Reinach family, who lived in a chateau in Savoy, hired architect Emmanuel Pontremoli in 1908 to design a mansion in Beaulieu-Sur-Mer.

Villa Kérylos is organized into different rooms through a large courtyard flanked by 12 marble columns. The personal rooms are dedicated to Greek deities: Eros, with respect to Theodore’s chamber where ocher and reds dominate, and the goddess Hera in Fanny’s room, where blue tones and bird decorations stand out. Inside there are also exquisite chests, elegant desks, and a Carrara marble bathtub.

Reinach died in 1928. His son Léon took over the archives, but tragedy struck his wife and their two children. During the occupation of France in World War II, the house was confiscated by Nazis forces and the family was deported to Auschwitz. They all died in 1943. At the end of the war, other heirs of Reinach lived in the mansion until 1967.

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