Acquisition of land 1938 (≈ 1938)
Émile Hugot bought the plot on Rue Sainte-Anne.
1946
Construction begins
Construction begins 1946 (≈ 1946)
Start of work led by Pierre Fonterne.
1948
Bourbon Sugar Foundation
Bourbon Sugar Foundation 1948 (≈ 1948)
Émile Hugot became CEO.
octobre 2023
Registration for Historic Monuments
Registration for Historic Monuments octobre 2023 (≈ 2023)
Full protection of the house and its garden.
Aujourd'hui
Aujourd'hui
Aujourd'hui Aujourd'hui (≈ 2025)
Position de référence.
Heritage classified
Hugot House, with its entire garden, located 6 rue Sainte-Anne, on Parcel 244, shown in the cadastre section AH, as shown in red on the plan annexed to the decree: inscription by order of 18 October 2023
Key figures
Émile Hugot (1904-1993) - Sponsor and Sugar Industry
Owner, engineer and CEO of Bourbon Sugarries.
Pierre Fonterne - Architect
Designs the house from Tananarive.
Charles Anatole Hugot - Father d'Emile Hugot
President of the Chamber of Agriculture.
Origin and history
Maison Hugot, located 6 rue Sainte-Anne in Saint-Denis (La Réunion), is a large house built between 1946 and the 2nd quarter of the 20th century. It adopts a square plan of 25 meters side, structured on two levels around a covered atrium illuminating a monumental staircase. Its facades, decorated with twin-column galleries and balusters, illustrate the persistent reunited taste for neoclassical style, inspired by antiquity. This centered plan and the peripheral colonnade also evoke the neo-Palladian villas, marked in the Indian Ocean and American colonial spaces.
The house was commissioned by Émile Hugot (1904-1993), a central engineer and major figure in the Réunion sugar industry. Son of Charles Anatole Hugot, president of the Chamber of Agriculture, he led several sugar factories in 1932 (Adam de Villiers, Leperon, Savannah) before founding in 1948 the Sugarries of Bourbon, of which he became CEO until 1979. In 1938 he acquired with his wife Jeanne Reydellet a plot of land including a wooden house, which he replaced from 1946 by the present concrete house, designed by architect Pierre Fonterne, then based in Tananarive (Madagascar).
The building, registered with the Historical Monuments since October 2023, bears witness to the links between Creole elites and architectural modernity. Its garden and cadastral plot (section AH, n°244) are fully protected. The house also embodies the legacy of sugar families, the economic pillar of Réunion in the 20th century, while integrating European stylistic influences adapted to the tropical context.
The architect Pierre Fonterne, although little documented in the text, plays a key role in transposing neoclassical and Palladian codes into an island setting. The location of the house, right in the centre of Saint-Denis (code Insee 97411), reinforces its status as a symbol of the Reunion heritage, between colonial tradition and modern aspirations.
