This prestigious residence on Mont-Boron, with swimming pool and landscaped park, is located on the site of the former winter villa of Baron Haussmann.

The Villa Haussmann is one of the major milestones in the great history of the Côte d’Azur. Built on Mont-Boron by Baron Haussmann (1809-1891), the legendary prefect of the Seine who forever transformed the face of Paris, it originally extended over a 2.5-hectare site that he acquired in 1866. The archives of the newspaper Les Echos de Nice tell us that it was still under construction in the spring of 1867, but that it was completed in early October, just in time to welcome Empress Eugénie.

Baron Haussmann had entrusted the work to the architect Félix Narjoux, a former student of Viollet-le-Duc. Halfway up the hillside, 80 meters above the sea and sheltered from the winds, the Villa Haussmann then claimed its Italian inspiration, notably through its colored marbles, terraces and columns. The idea for Haussmann was to be able to enjoy a winter residence in a region that he knew how gentle he was as the prefect of the Var at the beginning of his career.

As the major works were not likely to impress him, he had the rocky terrain transformed by the landscape gardener Adolphe Alphand, considered the father of Parisian green spaces (it is to him that we owe the Bois de Boulogne in particular!). Alphand created for Haussmann on Mont-Boron a magnificent park with a multitude of rose and orange trees.

As the Côte d’Azur was then in its infancy, the arrival of such a builder resonated as a consecration for the city of Nice. All the more so as the Prefect of the Seine was going to welcome the Emperor Napoleon III in person in his villa in 1869! The advent of the Third Republic, however, was to gradually remove him from power and in 1881, heavily in debt, Georges Haussmann had to part with his villa on Mont-Boron. The latter was then sold to a Russian aristocrat, Elisabeth Kotschoubey, who renamed it Palais Kotschoubey and in turn welcomed a crowned head, Queen Victoria, in 1896.

The property changed hands several times at the beginning of the 20th century. Poorly maintained, it was bought at the end of the 1950s by a developer who built in its place three buildings that are now highly prized on the prestigious real estate market in Nice: the Résidences du Parc Haussmann!