Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Plantier de Costebelle is a neo-Palladian villa built between 1859 and 1861 in Hyères, Var, by Baroness Hortense Pauline Husson de Prailly. Located on the heights of Costebelle, it overlooks the Hyères harbour and the islands of Hyères. The property, originally named Villa des Palmiers, is designed as a resort for the intellectual and religious elite of the 19th century, including Father Henri Lacordaire and Bishop Felix Dupanloup.

The Baroness of Prailly, originally from Lorraine, bought the land in 1857 from Ernest Desclozeaux, a retired magistrate. It entrusts construction to the hyerois architect Victor Trotobas, inspired by Italian Palladian villas. The botanical park, created with the help of horticulturalist Charles Huber, became an acclimatisation garden for exotic species such as the Phoenix dactylifera and the Yucca filifera, which bloomed for the first time in Europe in 1876.

In 1892, the villa welcomed Queen Victoria, who lived there with her husband, Prince Henri de Battenberg. The property was sold in 1896 to the writer Paul Bourget, who renamed it Le Plantier de Costebelle. Bourget received literary and political figures, such as André Gide, Henry James, and Edith Wharton, until his death in 1935. The villa is then transmitted to General Marius Daille, heir to Bourget.

The neo-Gothic chapel, built in the 1860s, houses stained glass windows and statues dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Dominique. The park, labeled Remarkable Garden in 2009, preserves rare species such as the Cyprus shrub and Chilean coconut trees. The property, partially classified as a Historical Monument in 1976, is now a writer's house open to the public by appointment.

During World War II, the villa was requisitioned in 1943, and its archives were transferred for protection. In 1980, part of Bourget's collection of primitive Sienese paintings was transferred to the Chambéry Museum via a dance. Today, the Plantier de Costebelle combines private housing and cultural openness, preserving its architectural and botanical heritage.

The estate is a testament to the golden age of Azurean resorts, mixing literary, religious and botanical history. Its park, unchanged since the 19th century, offers a preserved setting where Mediterranean and exotic species are side by side, under the protection of heritage labels.

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