Villa Arnaga (Pyrénées-Atlantiques)

Villa Arnaga is a villa built by Edmond Rostand (French poet, writer, and playwright) in Cambo-les-Bains (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Nouvelle Aquitaine) at the beginning of the 20th century. The villa and its grounds, owned by the commune of Cambo-les-Bains since 1960, house the Edmond Rostand Museum.

Arraga—modified to “Arnaga” by Rostand for its sound—means “place of stone” in Basque.

History

Edmond Rostand was 32 years old when, still recovering from pleurisy contracted during rehearsals for The Eaglet, he rented Villa Etchegorria in Cambo.

Upon his return from Paris, where he had just been elected to the Académie Française (1901), he purchased a plot of land located on a hill where the Arraga River winds its way. He developed the land and, from 1903 to 1906, had the villa built, where he wrote Chantecler.

After Rostand’s death in 1918, the furniture and his library were dispersed, including in particular some precious antique Coromandel lacquer panels.

The municipality purchased the villa in 1960 to turn it into the Edmond Rostand Museum.

Gérard Depardieu donated his César award, received in 1991 for his performance in Cyrano de Bergerac (a play written by Rostand), to the museum; it is on display in the library.

The establishment has been awarded the Musée de France label.

Architecture

Villa

This is a vast Basque house that Rostand had built by the architect Joseph-Albert Tournaire between 1903 and 1906.

The villa is one of the first examples of the neo-Basque style, which was to achieve great success throughout France.

Indeed, Rostand himself designed and decorated the villa’s forty rooms, spanning nearly 600 m² of floor space, in various styles: English (for the hall), Chinese (for the smoking room), Empire, and Louis XVI. The painter Gaston La Touche contributed to its decoration by painting important murals.

It benefited from electricity and a hot-air radiator from the very beginning.

Garden

Designed by Rostand himself, the park features fifteen hectares of French and English-style gardens, pavilions, ponds, and, at the end of a long canal, a large portico framed by two symmetrical open pavilions, inspired by the monument that closes the perspective of the Schönbrunn Palace park (Austria), and a classical-style orangery.

To beautify his park and quickly enjoy beautiful shade, Rostand, who had substantial financial resources at his disposal, had century-old pollarded oak trees imported from the Saint-Pée forest and planted in the park.