Du Parc – Saint Jean Cap Ferrat
Around 1902, Henri Peretmère commissioned a large white bastide within grounds of two hectares, which he named “Du Parc”. A self-made man and a quarryman of the state, this son of a coachman from the North of France, discovers the Cap Ferrat towards the end of the 19th century and immediately understands the potential of the area. He uses all his savings and purchases in 1898 a large piece of land of approximately 60 hectares stretching from the Villa Polonaise until the lighthouse. A business associate of Albert Bloch, he recruits 140 workmen who for one year build a circular boulevard around the cap. He proceeded to sell pieces of land to rich buyers who were looking to build their residences. This enormous piece of land included an important mass of rock, a kind of cliff that reached down to the bay de Fosses that Henri Peretmère thinks that he can quickly exploit as a quarry.
The occasion arises when the Prince Albert 1 of Monaco decides in 1901 to enlarge the Principality’s port. He asks him to come and collect stocks of rock from Cap Ferrat and the exploitation of the quarry of which rocks, dynamite were each day transported on barges by sea to the Monaco port where they were used for the new sea wall. Becoming rich from these operations, Henri Peretmère easily allowed himself to build a classy mansion in 1904. He chooses the architect Charles Dalmas, who dedicated his work until he 1909 when he worked on the Carlton Hotel in Cannes.
The artist designed for his sponsor a large property built on three levels with a fresco facade composing of ten bedrooms, an imposing reception room decorated with three large bay windows in arcades along with vast terraces dominated by an angled tower with light openings.
Several years later, the demure was purchased by Herman Frash, an important industrialist nicknamed “the sulphur king”.
Following the Second World War
Following the Second World War, the grounds of the property was divided and three smaller villas were constructed. The building has had a number of transformations notably the division of the reception room and the construction of an additional wing on the second floor, which was then divided into two apartments.
Here is a selection of villas for rent in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat.
