Photo : Celette / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
La Folie-Saint-James
When the Baron de Saint-James acquired it, the building at Neuilly-sur-Seine, in the Hauts-de-Seine, constructed in 1638, looked like no more than a simple manor house. Classical in style, it was horseshoe-shaped. Between 1779 and 1795 the baron added a Palladian brick and stone pavilion at the left corner (rendered pink in 1950) and created a 'spectacle garden'.
Monsieur de Saint-James called on the famous François-Joseph Bélanger, first architect to the Count of Artois and one of the greatest landscape designers of his time. The architect gave the pavilion façade a Neoclassical dress: a portico with four Ionic columns, a pediment with coat of arms, palmette friezes and antique-style cameos. The owner's aim was nothing less than to rival the Folie d'Artois, today's Bagatelle, nearby in the Bois de Boulogne.
