Palais Maeterlinck, Private palace on Cap de Nice, France

Palais Maeterlinck is a neo-classical palace set on a large estate on Cap de Nice with direct Mediterranean waterfront access. The building showcases Florentine architectural influences and combines original period details with contemporary residential layouts.

Begun in 1913 for a British client by architects Romaine, Walker and Jenkins, the building stayed unfinished until Count de Miléant bought it around 1920 to create a rival to the Monte-Carlo casino, Castellamare, a plan undone by the 1928 opening of the palais de la Méditerranée. Sold by court order in 1930, it was bought at auction for two million francs by Maurice Maeterlinck for his wife Renée Dahon, who completed the shell and named it villa Orlamonde.

The villa was named Orlamonde after a poem in the opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue by Paul Dukas and Maurice Maeterlinck. In the 1930s the writer hosted parties there attended by figures such as Charlie Chaplin and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The ashes of Maeterlinck and his wife Renée Dahon rest in a stele on a nearby platform.

The property is now divided into private luxury apartments and is not open for public tours. You can view the exterior architecture and surrounding grounds from the street and nearby viewpoints.

The villa's name Orlamonde comes from a poem in the opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue by Paul Dukas and Maurice Maeterlinck. The writer and his wife Renée Dahon are buried in a stele on a platform near the palace, a detail easy to miss from the coastal path below.