Maison natale de Saint-John Perse, Literary heritage house in Pointe-à-Pitre, France.
The birthplace of Saint-John Perse at 54 rue Achille-René-Boisneuf in Pointe-à-Pitre was a three-storey building: masonry ground floor and two wooden upper floors under a sheet-metal roof, built to resist earthquakes. Its street facade had three arched openings, green wooden doors, two wooden balconies and boarded windows. It was demolished on 23 September 2017.
The house was built between 1850 and 1860 following the 1843 earthquake and was the birthplace of poet Alexis Leger in 1887. Its construction reflected the city's rebuilding efforts after the natural disaster.
Alexis Leger, born here on 31 May 1887, spent his first twelve years in this house, with summers at the La Joséphine plantation in Matouba or at Bois-Debout in Capesterre-Belle-Eau, before leaving for Pau in March 1899. His father's family were notaries and lawyers, his mother's plantation owners. The building was demolished on 23 September 2017.
The house no longer stands: it was demolished on 23 September 2017, so only the site at 54 rue Achille-René-Boisneuf remains, in the old town of Pointe-à-Pitre. The municipal demolition order was annulled retrospectively by the administrative court in 2018, but no reconstruction followed. The street is walked on foot from the city centre.
The house was demolished on 23 September 2017 under a municipal decree issued the day before; in 2018 the administrative court annulled that decree because the building posed no "particularly grave and imminent peril", but it did not order reconstruction. The facade and roof had been inscribed as monuments historiques since 1 August 1995.
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