Villa Bagatelle

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Villa Bagatelle
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The Villa Bagatelle (also known as Spencer Cottage ) is a listed residential building in the Canadian city ​​of Québec . It is located in the south-western district of Sillery on Chemin Saint-Louis, on the edge of the Parc du Bois-de-Coulonge . The neo-Gothic villa , built in the middle of the 19th century, stands in the middle of a landscaped garden . It is owned by the city and is used for exhibitions.

history

Timber merchant Romuald Henry Atkinson acquired the Spencer Wood estate in 1835 (burned down in 1966). He had Spencer Cottage built next door between 1849 and 1852 . It was soon named Villa Bagatelle, based on the Château Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris . The Scottish landscape gardener Peter Lowe redesigned the gardens based on the English model. While Atkinson himself lived in Spencer Wood, he or his heirs left the villa to wealthy tenants.

A new owner, Sophia Rhodes, commissioned a renovation in 1926, but a fire destroyed the house on December 18, 1927 to the ground. The following year it was rebuilt by the architect Thomas Reid Peacock, using photographs as the basis, as the original plans were no longer available. In 1929 the work was completed. From 1940 to 1948 Zita von Bourbon-Parma , the last Austrian Empress, lived here with her daughters Charlotte and Elisabeth.

In 1971 the Rhodes family sold the villa to a real estate company. It stood empty for a decade and gradually fell into disrepair as the company planned to build a mall on the property. In 1983, the then independent town of Sillery wanted to tear down the villa, which the Québec Province Cultural Goods Commission vehemently rejected. The city then bought the building and repaired it. Villa Bagatelle has been open to the public since 1985 and is used regularly for exhibitions and receptions. The maintenance has been carried out since 2002 by the administration of the urban district of Sainte-Foy-Sillery-Cap-Rouge .

Web links

Commons : Villa Bagatelle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 46 ° 47 '20.4 "  N , 71 ° 14' 44.9"  W.