Villa Le Cercle
This graceful building was built during the Belle époque for the very select Jockey Club of Paris. It was then a lively place, animated with receptions where the whole of Paris and the celebrities passing through were crowded. The Cercle accompanied the birth of the city, which emerged from the sands in 1860, barely thirteen years before the construction of this building.
INSPIRATIONS
Between the casino and the Royal Hotel, the brick facades of the Cercle, designed in 1873 by Desle-François Breney, who also designed the urban plan of Deauville, stretch out. When he was commissioned, Breney was inspired by the Hôtel de Salm. A private mansion close to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which became the Museum of the Legion of Honor in 1804. This same Hôtel de Salm had also seduced Thomas Jefferson when he was US Ambassador to France and inspired the design of the White House.
This Club is the summer annex of the Jockey Club of Paris (created in 1836). Based on the principle of the English clubs, its purpose is to bring together men who share the same passion for horses.
In 2000, noting the dilapidated state of the building, occupied only one month a year, the president of the Circle made an agreement with the City of Deauville. The latter financed the restoration of the place in exchange for the possibility of using it eleven months a year. Today, the Cercle is a place for cultural, economic and social meetings. It is open for rent for private events.
Meeting place
See the commercial siteCHARACTERISTICS OF THE BUILDING
Le Cercle is characteristic of Napoleon III architecture with :
- A flat roof terrace,
- Large bay windows interspersed with colonnades
- A rotunda in a circular arc
- Openings surmounted by niches decorated with terracotta busts.
The construction is made of red bricks from the Croix Sonnet brick factory and yellow bricks from the Touques brick factory, materials that were also used for the construction of the Saint Augustin Church.
Like 555 villas in Deauville, the Cercle is listed in the Aire de Mise en Valeur de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine (AVAP) of Deauville.
