The Palais Rose, located at 14 Allée des Fêtes at the corner of 12 rue Diderot in Vésinet in the department of Yvelines, was built in 1899, inspired by the Grand Trianon in Versailles.
Some ten subsequent owners, including notables such as Comte Robert de Montesquiou and the Marquise Luisa Casati, contributed to the fame of this dwelling, organizing lavish receptions there.
It was then comprehensively restored in the 2000s under the direction of Emad Khashoggi, head of COGEMAD, who was also responsible for the Château Louis XIV project in the forest of Louveciennes.
Having gotten no use from the building in two years, Tata agreed to part with it, selling the property to a man of letters who had instantly fallen in love with the Palais Rose.
A great collector, with “a hereditary sense of magnificence,” (to quote his own words), he furnished the dwelling with an array of exotic objects.
[2] Although he enjoyed his own festivities, the Comte de Montesquiou took a dim view of the municipal celebrations organized right next to his property in the Allée des Fêtes.
He deemed these gatherings to be noisy and too “popular.” Although visitors were not as frequent as they had been when the poet resided in the Pavillon des Muses in Neuilly – Vésinet was more distant from Paris – he still received many distinguished guests.
Among them were Gabriele d’Annunzio, Ida Rubinstein, Claude Debussy, Colette, Rodin, Sarah Bernhardt, Maurice Rostand, Jean Cocteau and Cécile Sorel.
Her predecessors’ festive gatherings had been remarkable, but the parties given by the Marquise de Casati left their own luminous memories It is said that she arranged dinners that were illumined by nothing but bulbs she wore as a necklace.
The house was handed over to Auguste-Eustache Leprévost, a creditor of Luisa Amman (the Marquise de Casati), who was ostensibly acting on behalf of the Société civile du Palais Rose.
In order to settle the marquise's debts, the Société civile du Palais Rose decided to divide the domain to maximize its options, and the property was split into eight lots.
Together with his family, he attempted to reconstitute the property, restoring it to the state in which it was left by the Comte de Montesquiou in 1921 by buying four additional lots.
At the beginning of the Battle of France, Général de Gaulle, en route to take command of the Fourth Armored Division, accepted Mr. Scrive's hospitality.
During the 1950s, the plan for the municipality of Vésinet to purchase the property was revived by Lucie Valore [fr], the wife of the famous painter Maurice Utrillo.
This work inaugurated an immense project during which Emad Khashoggi, heading up his company COGEMAD, completely restored and enlarged the Palais Rose.
Initially, when the Schweitzers were in residence, the main façade overlooking the Lac des Ibis on the east side of the building seems to have been particularly faithful to its model.
A very steep little staircase located in one of the halls gave access to a lower level where service areas such as the kitchen and laundry room had ceilings scarcely 7 feet high.
The furnishings and decorative objects played a primary role in creating a personalized atmosphere, and he also added his family coat of arms.
He located this temple at the intersection of two perpendicular allées that crossed the park, making the structure the garden's principal attraction, set picturesquely amidst the green lawns and foliage.
He applied stone surfacing to the base of the building to “emphasize its massiveness, which was necessary to display the main floor to the best advantage.” When the Blumentals purchased the Ermitage in April 1982, they again commissioned Jean-Louis Cardin to carry out the restoration.
The very extensive work performed resulted in a number of significant modifications, while conserving the portion of the building registered in the list of historic monuments.