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The Plantier de Costebelle is a neo-Palladian architectural house built in 1857 by Baroness Hortense Pauline Husson of Prailly. Located in the municipality of Hyères-les-Palmiers, in the department of Var, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Birds and the hills of Costebelle, the property overlooks the bay of Hyères, the peninsula of Giens and the islands of Porquerolles and Port-Cros. A holiday destination in the second half of the year for eminent clergymen (the Dominican father Henri Lacordaire and the bishop of Orléans, Monsignor Félix Dupanloup), the "Villa des Palmiers" (so named by Hortense de Prailly) also welcomes the legitimist writer Armand de Pontmartin. But the most illustrious visit to date remains the passage to the Villa des Palmiers, by Queen Victoria accompanied by Princess Henri de Battenberg in 1892.

In 1896, the French novelist and academician Paul Bourget (), author of the Disciple, bought the property which then took his present name, "Le Plantier de Costebelle", and received numerous personalities from the literary world, such as André Gide, Henry James, Edith Wharton, from the political sphere (Lady Randolph Churchill, Charles Maurras, Maurice Barrès) or even from the military (Maréchal Joseph Joffre) until his death in 1935. On that date, the estate was transferred to the heir of the novelist, General Marius Daille.

The house benefits from a partial registration in the additional inventory of historical monuments by a decree of . Its botanical park has been labeled "Remarkable Garden" since . After many years of renovation designed to restore the architectural and botanical ensemble as it was desired by Hortense de Prailly in the 17th century, the Costebelle Planter is today a writer's house, combining private home and open to the public under certain conditions.

Property history

At the origin of the property of the Plantier de Costebelle is a vast campaign belonging to Louis Jacques Odier, member of the Conseil Souverain de la République de Genève, from 1822. Dominique Honoré Peillon and his wife, born Marguerite Adélaïde Eydoux, owners of Hyerois, became the new masters of the place in 1840. Following the expropriation of Sieur Peillon and at an auction on 1851, the estate was awarded to Ernest Desclozeaux. The July monarchy made him a magistrate. He was then elected MP in Embrun in the Hautes-Alpes. But after the French revolution of 1848, he moved away from political life. In 1857, Ernest Desclozeaux detached a parcel of land which he sold to the Baroness of Prailly. This is the birth certificate of the property of the Costebelle Planter.

Baroness Hortense Pauline Husson de Prailly, Villa des Palmiers

Family origins and construction

Hortense Chevandier de Valdrome () married Baron Husson de Prailly () in 1834, president of the Civil Court of First Instance of Nancy and official