Villa et jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild

Seduced by the beauty of Cap Ferrat, one of the most admirable sites on the Côte d'Azur, Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild, wife of Maurice Éphrussi, acquired seven hectares of land in 1905 on the narrowest part of the peninsula. It took five years of titanic work (1907-1912) to build the villa, inspired by Italian Renaissance architecture, and to lay out the gardens.

In 1934, Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild bequeathed the gardens and the Villa Île-de-France (later named the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild) to the Académie des beaux-arts in memory of her father Alphonse, who was a member of the Académie. She added all her collections (more then 5,000 works of art): those of her Paris hotel at 19 avenue Foch, of her two villas in Monte Carlo, Soleil and Rose de France, and of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

In 1937, the Villa was opened to the public. With a clear predilection for the eighteenth century, each room was furnished according to the guidelines and tastes of the founder, revealing the eclecticism of her collections: royal carpets from the Savonnerie, tapestries from the Gobelins based on cartoons by Coypel, porcelain from Meissen, Vincennes and Sèvres, paintings by Fragonard and François Boucher, ceilings by Tiepolo and Pelligrini, furniture by the greatest cabinetmakers of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as a Far Eastern art salon, with eighteenth-century doors from the Imperial Palace in Peking and a twelve-leaf Coromandel screen (Qing dynasty).

Surrounded by seven magnificent themed gardens and a rose garden, the Villa overlooks the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer on one side and the bay of Beaulieu on the other. Béatrice de Rothschild conceived her garden as the bow of a ship and had several mirrors of different thicknesses placed at the top of the hill, near the Tempietto, to reflect the sea and give the illusion that the Tempietto was floating. The Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, a total creation of its founder's imagination, arouses wonder, admiration and curiosity.

The Villa and its gardens have been listed as Historic Monuments since 1993.