The iron frogs of Villa Myriam

At the edge of the street in Saint-Pierre, Maison Levesque sits with a northern facade of shingles giving it a rustic appearance. The main body rose in the early 1800s, but the southern face was added later, standing as a screen to hide the rooms tucked slightly back from the road.

In the garden, a circular basin features a decorative iron casting. Iron frogs, distant cousins to the decorations of Versailles in the 17th century, line the water. In the center, a 19th-century sculpture of a putto holding a dolphin pours water from a square pedestal. This sculpture takes inspiration from a Renaissance bronze by Andrea del Verrocchio.

The house tells a story of shifting tastes. While the front displays the refinement of the Falaise family and their successors, the north side bears the scars of the 1950s-1960s. Concrete additions were grafted onto the old structure there, creating a rustic contrast to the refined southern facade.

Today, the mansion breathes as a guesthouse known as Villa Myriam. Visitors can still walk through the wide central corridors and sit beneath the gallery, where jalousies filter the light.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons