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Origin and history

The villa La Rafale is a seaside villa built in 1894 in the Touquet-Paris-Plage, Pas-de-Calais department. It is the work of architect Louis Marie Cordonnier, who conceived it as his summer residence. This villa, among the first of the Touquet, combines Anglo-Norman, German and Dutch styles. It is located at the corner of Louis-Hubert Avenue and Rue des Dunes, on land exposed to sand invasions, which required a high stone base.

The villa is distinguished by its architecture adapted to the seaside climate: an elevated ground floor with services (office, laundry, pantry), a square floor accessible by an external staircase, and a corbelled top covered with scaffold tiles. Interior, including the pitchpin panelled dining room, reflects the care given to this residence. Louis Cordonnier, a renowned architect, also designed other villas in Touquet, such as Quentovic (destroyed in 1944) and the Hermitage, before he devoted himself to the creation of the Hardelot station after selling La Rafale in 1900.

The facades and roofs of the villa were listed as historical monuments by order of 12 May 1997 (or 1 December 1997 according to the sources). Today, the villa is divided into apartments, but it remains an architectural testimony of the emergence of the Touquet-Paris-Plage as a seaside resort at the end of the 19th century. Its location, at the old entrance of the city, and its eclectic style make it an emblematic monument of this period.

Villa La Rafale illustrates the influence of northern architects in the development of the seaside resorts of the Opale Coast. Louis Cordonnier, from Lille, applied techniques and styles inspired by local and European traditions, while adapting construction to natural constraints, such as invasive sand. This monument thus reflects the rise of seaside tourism in France at the end of the 19th century, marked by the search for secondary residences for the wealthy classes.

Available sources, including the works of Patricia Crespo and Edith and Yves De Gueeter, as well as databases such as Mérimée, document her history and architecture. The villa remains an example studied of the adaptation of alpine or northern chalets to the coastal context, with materials and shapes designed to withstand marine elements.

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