Palais de Marbre

The Palais de Marbre, also known as Villa Les Palmiers, is a nineteenth-century villa in Nice. Carrara marble covers the villa’s exterior and gives the building its distinctive name. Its design combines Italian Renaissance inspiration with neoclassical details and belongs to the Palladian tradition. Architect Sébastien-Marcel Biasini designed the villa for receptions and art displays. The surrounding grounds preserve traces of an exotic park, including palms, araucarias, eucalyptus, cedars, ponds, cypresses, and an artificial grotto. Some mature trees still stand in the grounds. The gardens changed from an English landscape design to a more formal French arrangement. A verse by John Keats appears on the south façade. Napoleon III, Empress Eugénie, and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna all visited the estate. The villa later became a filming location for Lola Montès and Cela s’appelle l’aurore. Nice’s municipal archives have occupied the main building since 1963. The archives preserve documents, plans, and images connected with the city’s heritage. The villa, park, and garden decorations entered the supplementary inventory of historic monuments in 1993. Today, the Palais de Marbre connects Riviera architecture with changing gardens and civic memory.