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Origin and history

Villa Arnaga is a residence designed by the writer Edmond Rostand at the beginning of the 20th century in Cambo-les-Bains, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Inspired by the neo-Basque architectural style, Rostand built this house between 1903 and 1906 with the help of architect Joseph-Albert Tournaire. The name "Arnaga", adaptation of the Basque Arraga ("stone place"), reflects its attachment to the region. The villa, decorated as a theatre with English, Chinese and Louis XVI influences, becomes a reception place for personalities such as composer Jules Massenet.

Rostand, weakened by a pleurisy contracted during the rehearsals of L'Aiglon, settled permanently in Arnaga in 1906 after renting the villa Etchegorria. He wrote there, but the fascists of his worldly life led him to ruin, despite the copyrights of his works. After his death in 1918, furniture and library, including Coromandel lacquer panels, were dispersed. The villa, surrounded by a fifteen-hectare park mixing French and English gardens, is conceived as a "poem of stone and greenery".

In 1960, the municipality of Cambo-les-Bains acquired the estate to create the Edmond-Rostand Museum, labeled Musée de France. The park, classified as a remarkable garden, includes an orangery, ponds and a portico inspired by the Schönbrunn Palace. Gérard Depardieu offered his Caesar for Cyrano de Bergerac (1991). Ranked a historic monument in 1995, the villa illustrates the alliance between Basque art of living and Rostand's theatrical creativity.

The gardens, restored in 2014, reflect Rostand's eclectic aesthetic, which planted centuries-old oaks for immediate shade. The interior decoration, where Rostand collaborated with artists like Gaston La Touche, combines frescoes and art objects. The villa, originally equipped with electricity and central heating, symbolizes the technological luxury of the period. Today, the estate, including concierge, mill and orangery, has been fully protected since 2016.

Arnaga's history is also that of a preserved cultural heritage. The museum exhibits manuscripts, theatre costumes and souvenirs of Rostand, while the gardens, labeled by the Conservatoire des Jardins et Paysages, perpetuate its poetic spirit. The villa, the first example of the neo-Basque style in France, remains a unique testimony of the life of a major playwright and his love for the Basque Country.

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