Description
A modernist masterpiece at the gateway to Camargue
Built in the 1970s near Nîmes, 35 km from the beaches and ponds of Camargue, this work of art by architect Armand Pellier nestles in the heart of a park of almost one hectare.
Set in a 9,880 sqm plot, the house has a floor area of 260 sqm. The entrance hall with cloakroom, lit by a skylight, serves the day area on one side and the night area on the other. It is now home to an inviting table, thanks to its generous dimensions.
The 80 sqm living room opens onto the garden through a glass wall running its entire length. It houses a living room with a monumental fireplace in Gard stone. The original plan also placed the dining room here. The kitchen (renovated in 2009), with its dining area, extends onto a large terrace protected from the sun’s rays by an awning.
The sleeping area, which is accessed via a hallway with storage space, has four bedrooms and three bathrooms, all in pristine condition. Each bedroom opens onto the garden.There is also an air-conditioned wine cellar, a laundry room, a machine room and a double carport.
The villa has a 10×5 metre swimming pool, slightly off-centre to the west at bedroom level. The stone terraces are flush with the lawn, which benefits from automatic watering supplied by a borehole. Exterior lighting highlights the flower beds in the evening.
The villa is ideally located just ten kilometres from Nîmes. Golf Nîmes Campagne and Nîmes Garon airport are close by.
A sculptural work
The villa is a long building with a modernist aesthetic, soft lines and a strong horizontal emphasis. Its glass wall, sheltered by a concrete canopy, opens up the living spaces to the garden without interrupting the load-bearing pillars. The concrete structure of the house is clad in stone from the Pont du Gard, a material characteristic of the architect’s work.
Armand Pellier’s architectural approach draws on his artistic practice. This former sculptor works on inhabited volumes and how they fit into space and the landscape, using a regular layout as a basis for composition. He takes into account the topography and climate of each site and designs buildings that are anchored in their environment, recalling the late American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the Californian projects of Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra.
Hôtel Les Cabanettes, Arles, 1967
Maison des Compagnons du Devoir, Nîmes, 1969
Armand Pellier, stonemason architect
A self-taught architect, Armand Pellier (1910-1989) was a sculptor, stonemason and quarryman who worked in the south of France from 1935. He studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, graduating in 1935.In 1935, he moved to Nîmes as a statuary sculptor and met the sculptor Jean Bernard, with whom he became involved in the revival of the Compagnonnage movement. In 1940, he re-opened a stone quarry in Vers (Pont-du-Gard), which provided a coarse-grained yellow limestone that had been used since Antiquity and was reused during the reconstruction of Marseille, notably for Fernand Pouillon’s buildings in the Old Port. This stone became the guiding thread in Armand Pellier’s work.
He moved on from sculpture to making fireplaces, then to decoration and scenography, and turned to architecture in the 1950s. He was approved by the Fédération nationale des bureaux d’études et techniciens du bâtiment de Nîmes in 1952, and set up as a building project manager. He worked for a private clientele, designing numerous villas in Nîmes and the surrounding area, as well as a number of facilities including the Les Cabanettes hotel in Arles and branches of the Crédit Agricole bank. He also built the Maison des Compagnons in Nîmes in 1969 and the Maison des Compagnons in Saint-Etienne in 1975.
Technical elements
Price: €1,140,000
Fees payable by the vendor
Full ownership
Land tax: €2,700
ENERGY CLASS: C / CLIMATE CLASS: C.
Diagnostic carried out before 1 July 2021.
