Folie Marco, Decorative arts museum in a patrician house in Barr, France

Folie Marco is a patrician house completed in 1763 at 30 rue du Docteur-Sultzer, outside Barr's former town walls. Its two carriage gates with wrought-iron balconies bearing the arms of Louis-Félix Marco and his wife open onto a courtyard; inside, a Louis XIV oak staircase with carved balusters serves three floors, each with a large reception room.

Louis Félix Marco, a lawyer at the Conseil souverain d'Alsace, had the house built after becoming bailli of Barr in 1750; it was finished in 1763. Financial troubles forced his son to sell it, and from 1816 to 1922 it served as the summer residence of the Strasbourg tobacco-merchant Trawitz family. In 1922 the Schwartz brothers bought it, and in 1935 it was inscribed as a monument historique.

The name "Folie Marco" honours Louis-Félix Marco, the Strasbourg bailiff who built the house; "folie" referred to the fashionable country residences of the 17th century, though art historian Hans Haug judged it simply a large country house. The museum, opened in 1964, displays Alsatian bourgeois furniture from the 17th to 19th centuries, including a walnut dining room suite of the Restoration period and Sarreguemines earthenware.

The mansion is located in central Barr and is accessible for visitors interested in historic architecture. It is advisable to check in advance which areas are open and whether guided tours are available.

Only one piece of the original furniture survives: a two-part Louis XV oak bookcase in a corner of the entrance hall. The rest of the collection came from the Schwartz brothers, who bought the emptied house in 1922 and installed their own bourgeois furniture. Look for the bas-relief trophies recalling that bailli Marco was a hunting enthusiast.