[1] Pontremonli was born in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, to a Jewish family from Piedmont;[2] he studied in the atelier of Louis-Jules André.

In 1890, he won the Prix de Rome in the architecture category and in 1922 became a member of the Académie des Beaux Arts.

He taught a clinical architecture studio at the Beaux-Arts, alongside André Leconte, a former student and winner of the 1927 Prix de Rome.

[3] Pontremoli was appointed director of the Beaux-Arts in 1932 and is credited with shepherding the school, whose name had become synonymous with neoclassicism, into the twentieth century.

[4] Pontremoli is best known for his architectural creation of Villa Kerylos for Théodore and Fanny Reinach at Beaulieu-sur-Mer and for the Institute for Human Paleontology in Paris for Albert I, Prince of Monaco.