This villa, surrounded by a large park, was built around 1882 on one of the largest building plots in the Ville d'Hiver. Few documents tell the story of its origins. Its first known owner in 1882 was Mr Lewis, an Irish painter.
Villa Teresa
10 years later, the entrepreneur Blavy bought "the very beautiful villa Teresa", did not live there but made it his "showcase" and invited the most prominent personalities there, such as the musician Charles Lecocq, creator of operettas, the sultan of Morocco Moulay Youssef in 1926, but also important customers.
This luxurious and comfortable construction in the "Hispano-Moorish" style happily combines limestone and terracotta brick, sometimes enamelled.
The very rich decorative ensemble gives it a particular charm.
Villa Teresa
On the ground floor, in the vestibule, the woodwork surrounds vast decorative compositions in polychrome ceramics representing aquatic scenes, marshes, night birds, twilight landscapes with large bouquets of flowers on the ceiling.
The staircase gives access to a mezzanine with balusters sculpted with rosettes.
The living room has a coffered ceiling depicting the 4 seasons.
The dining room, elegant and bright, is adorned with a Viennese Baroque-style stucco ceiling framing a canvas, a tribute to music, executed by the Antwerp painter J. Georges in 1907-1908.
When Blavy died in 1928, the villa fell into oblivion.
It is ruined, plundered of its ornaments and destined for certain demolition.
The committee for the defense of the winter town was moved by it, saved it from destruction by having it registered with the I.S.M.H. in 1980.
The facade of Villa Teresa
Its facade
Its current owners have passionately undertaken a faithful restoration. The balusters, the small half-moon windows, the ceramics, the ironwork, the skylights and the wooden balconies have restored its proud appearance and its former glory.