Timeline

Heritage classified

Origin and history

This house, built between 1905 and 1915 on the heights of Fort-de-France, illustrates the installation of wealthy families fleeing the overcrowded city centre after the catastrophic eruption of Mount Pelee in 1902, which destroyed Saint-Pierre. Its architecture, typical of the Creole houses of the time, combines a wooden floor with grooves and a mansard floor covered with corrugated sheet, raised on a masonry cellar. The rectangular building includes four outbuildings and a wrought iron grid, reflecting the social status of its occupants.

The interior decor, of remarkable richness, includes box ceilings and decorative friezes in the reception rooms (living room, dining room), as well as an office separated by a column arch and glass panels. Upstairs, the room has a fabulous wooded décor, while the doors, topped with openwork impossions and original painted glasses, testify to a neat craftsmanship. Classified as a Historic Monument in 2011 with its Creole garden and appendices, this house symbolizes both the post-disaster architectural renewal and the lifestyle of the Martinic elites at the beginning of the 20th century.

The location of the house, at 6 rue du Reverend-Père-Pinchon, corresponds to a privileged residential area, where space and ventilation were sought to escape urban densities and health risks. The materials used – local wood and imported sheet metal – reveal an adaptation to climatic constraints (humidity, cyclones) while showing a desire for modernity. The set, although partially documented, offers a rare example of preserved domestic heritage from this pivotal period of Martinic history.

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