Vernou Residential Quarter

Architecture - Petit-Bourg

In the 30s and following, members of the upper middle class and other distinguished citizens began building homes in this area in order to take advantage of the cool mountain air. One such citizen was Mr. Diligenti, an Italian entrepreneur who had a very large home built here. The latter had indeed won the tender for the work of viabilisation of the road leading to Hauteurs Lézarde and Vernou. Associated with Mr. Boulogne, he developed a resort area there. In addition to the villas of the two initiators, reinforced concrete, built in a modernist style, with ground floor reserved for service rooms, floor for living rooms, wide gallery and fore-body with bow-window. Beautiful houses in various styles may be admired throughout the neighborhood, many resembling the villas of the Basque coast, some with broad, full balconies, bay windows, and enclosed patios or verandas, surrounded by lovely gardens and landscaped drives. We find Villa Cacia, designed by architect Gérard-Michel Corbin, a fine example of modernist architecture of the 1930s, Villa Jaroslay, built in 1947, with its rounded south wing designed by architect Jacques Tessier, the Villa Ruillier, wooden frame and clad with planks, Villa Kiludi, reminiscent of the Basque style.It’s a far cry from creole architecture, but the neighborhood has managed to retain all of its 1950s charm, abetted to no small degree by the presence of a striking cultural icon sure to elicit nostalgia:  the old "Vernou Palace" cinema.