The Calypso Villa

A brief history of the Calypso Villa

The Calypso was built in 1967 by architect André LEFEVRE on a rock overlooking the sea.

André LEFEVRE, who was an architect in Paris in the Fifties, had come to spend his holidays in the Var with his wife Yvonne . He was never to return to Paris and settled for good on the Var coast where he set up his architectural practice the very same year

Because he was in love with the Mediterranean coast and its luxurious flora, André LEFEVRE, alongside his associate Jean AUBERT, used his genius and generosity to organize homes within natural elements when he built almost 250 houses in the same architectural style as the Calypso, on an unimproved plot of 167 hectares facing east and the sea in the late Sixties. This group of houses is now known as the Gaou-Bénat

From February 25 to April 5, 2009, an exhibition entitled « Architects of Disappearance », devoted to the works of André LEFEVRE and Jean AUBERT was held at the Villa NOAILLES in Hyères. The Villa was built by art collectors and modernity lovers Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles in December 1923, who lived in it as early as 1925. The Villa was bought back by the town of Hyères in 1973

Several photos of the Calypso were exhibited to show the genius of André LEFEVRE when he built his Bormes-stone houses - in mulitiered structures and with green roofs – always around Nature with such generosity, a great sense of aesthetics and architectural imagination. Ever since i twas built,The Calypso, lying on the rocks, facing the sea and lulled by the sound of the waves, has given the visitor a unique sensation of finding himsef between the land and the sea

The Calypso, lying on the rocks, facing the sea and lulled by the sound of the waves, has given the visitor a unique sensation of finding himself between the land and the sea