Architecture
French home of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson to
become a museum
Published
23rd March 2023
The Villa Windsor in the Bois de Boulogne near Paris
is expected to open to the public in the summer of 2024.
Credit:
Wolfgang Kuhn/United Archives/Getty Images
Written by
Lianne
Kolirin, CNN
The French
villa where the former British King, Edward VIII, lived with his American wife
Wallis Simpson will open to the public for the first time.
The
run-down Villa Windsor in the Boulogne woods of western Paris will open as a
museum next year to coincide with the Paris Olympics, following a multi-million
euro renovation.
Only days
before King Charles III and the Queen Consort are due to make their first state
visit to France, Paris city council signed the villa over to a charitable
foundation committed to preserving and promoting French heritage.
Set in
gardens stretching to 1.5 hectares, the 14-room mansion was where the former
king, who scandalized British society after abdicating in 1936, lived out his
later life with his wife.
The Duke
and Duchess of Windsor in the lounge of the Paris mansion.
The Duke
and Duchess of Windsor in the lounge of the Paris mansion. Credit: Robert
Siegler/INA/Getty Images
Elizabeth
Taylor, Marlene Dietrich and Aristotle Onassis were among the many rich and
famous who partied and socialized at 4 route du Champ d'Entraînement, after the
then Duke and Duchess of Windsor occupied it in 1953.
The couple
lived there until they died -- the duke in 1972 and the duchess in 1986. In the
days before his death, the duke was visited by his niece, Queen Elizabeth II.
Her son, then Prince Charles, had also previously visited -- an encounter
dramatized in series three of "The Crown."
The truth
about Wallis Simpson, the woman accused of stealing a king
Albéric de
Montgolfier, president of the charitable organization Fondation Mansart, told
CNN Wednesday that the city council leased the run-down mansion to his
organization for 32 years.
"This
house has never been open to the public before," he said, as he outlined
plans to update the property in time for the Olympics in the summer of 2024.
Viewers of
"The Crown" will have seen a recreation of the villa in the
blockbuster Netflix show, but none of the episodes were filmed at the Paris
location.
The house
was built in 1928 and has always been owned by the city of Paris, according to
de Montgolfier.
In 1944, it
opened its doors to the exiled General Charles de Gaulle, who moved in with
family following the liberation of Paris for two years.
De
Montgolfier said: "It was a very interesting period because lots of
France's laws were signed there, including the one giving French women the
right to vote."
Members of
the public will be able to visit the house for free from next summer, following
an extensive renovation project.
Members of
the public will be able to visit the house for free from next summer, following
an extensive renovation project. Credit: Manuel Litran/Paris Match/Getty Images
Following
the death of the Duchess of Windsor, the lease was taken over by Mohamed Al
Fayed, the Egyptian billionaire businessman.
De
Montgolfier said: "Al Fayed originally intended it as a home for his son
Dodi and had planned an engagement lunch there for Dodi and Diana."
But
tragically the lunch never took place, said de Montgolfier, as it had been
scheduled for the day after the couple were killed in the city in August 1997.
"Four
years ago Mohamed Al Fayed decided to give it [the villa] back to the city of
Paris," said de Montgolfier.
Episodes of
"The Crown" -- including this one from season three -- have been set
inside the house, but were filmed elsewhere.
Episodes of
"The Crown" -- including this one from season three -- have been set
inside the house, but were filmed elsewhere. Credit: Des Willie/Netflix
Part of why
the foundation was entrusted with the house is because it has successfully
restored the Château de Bagatelle, just meters from Villa Windsor in the
Boulogne woods.
Koh-i-Noor
diamond to be recognized as 'a symbol of conquest' in exhibition
Work on the
villa, expected to take more than a year, will include installing a new heating
system as well as measures to ensure it meets 21st century health and safety
standards. There will be a cafe and small restaurant on site and admission will
be free.
As well as
a museum with a permanent exhibition detailing its history, the newly renovated
villa will also be used to stage events.
"It is
a luxury house with a big, big dining room, a beautiful hall, a library and one
and a half hectares of gardens," de Montgolfier said. "It is just 10
minutes from the Place de l'Étoile in a really great location."
WINDSOR'S PARIS HOME TO BECOME MUSEUM
By Alice
Furlaud
Dec. 25,
1986
December
25, 1986, Section 1, Page 37
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/25/garden/windsor-s-paris-home-to-become-museum.html
This is a
digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start
of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally
appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
MOHAMMED
al-Fayed, an Egyptian businessman who owns the Ritz Hotel in Paris and Harrods
department store in London, has taken a 50-year lease on the former home of the
Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Le Bois, in the Bois de Boulogne.
The house,
a graceful 19th-century villa of 14 rooms surrounded by a large tree-filled
garden, belongs to the City of Paris. Although he refuses to say how much he is
paying, Mr. Fayed calls it ''a peppercorn rent.''
The City of
Paris is equally taciturn. Bernard Niquet, a city official, said, ''The city
rented the house to Mr. Fayed because it was absolutely neccessary that it
remain a private residence and be well kept up.''
Not
everyone acquiring such a residence would want to live there with the personal
possessions of the former occupants, right down to the last pair of socks. But
Mr. Fayed, who says he will spend about $2 million to rehabilitate the house,
plans to keep about two-thirds of it intact as a private museum of Windsor
memorabilia, to be visited only by ''historians, members of the British royal
family, personalities, friends and important guests of the Ritz.''
When not in
his town house in London, his castle in Scotland or his country house in
Surrey, Mr. Fayed will occupy the seven-room top floor of the Paris house,
''two or three times a month,'' he said. His wife and three youngest children
will join him during the school holidays.
In an
interview in London, Mr. Fayed said his interest in the house and the Windsors
was part of a lifelong fascination with history and romance. ''I come from
Alexandria - that's where Antony fell in love with Cleopatra.'' he said, ''It's
the most romantic city in the world.'' The Duke and Duchess moved into Le Bois
in 1953 after Jansen, the Paris decorating concern, redid the home under the
supervision of the Duchess.
It was the
Paris home of the peripatetic couple for the rest of their lives.
The Duke died
in 1972 and the Duchess last April.
Mr. Fayed
met the Windsors only once, when he attended a party at Le Bois about 20 years
ago. He says he remembers ''the way they danced and their sense of fun.''
''It was
the romance of the century,'' he said. ''Here was a great king of a great
empire, saying goodbye to it all for a beloved woman. And I had the chance to
preserve the house where he lived and all these objects. They're the heritage
of Britain, which is my second home.''
According
to Mr. Fayed, the Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, approached him as a possible
tenant for the house even before the Duchess died. But it was Mr. Fayed's idea
to buy the entire contents of the house, which were to be sold by the Duchess's
executors.
''They'd
started to make a catalogue - most of the things still have numbers on them,''
said Mr. Fayed, who declined to say what he paid for the contents. ''But you'll
find the place exactly as if the Duke and Duchess had just gone out to
dinner.''
Indeed, the
house has an almost eerily personal atmosphere, with photographs of royal
relations signed with nicknames, a pastel portrait of the Duke's last pug,
Black Diamond, in the Duchess's bathroom, and the Duke's hats in the hall
closet.
Sidney
Johnson, 63 years old, who was the Duke's valet for 32 years, was the person
who restored these possessions to their places. Mr. Johnson may be the most
important treasure of all the Windsoriana. He has been installed at Le Bois as
valet for Mr. Fayed and as a kind of house curator, moving over from the Ritz,
where he had been a waiter.
''Sidney is
a dictionary,'' Mr. Fayed said. ''He's a very cultured man. He got all these
things out of boxes and safes and storage rooms, and he knows their history.''
Mr.
Johnson, a Bahamian, began working for the Duke in 1940 when he was 16 and the
former King was Governor of the Bahamas.
On a tour
with Mr. Johnson through the elegant rooms, full of the glitter and gold of
mirrors, chandeliers and ormulu, he recalled the house's past.
''This is
where they always had their big, tall Christmas tree,'' Mr. Johnson said,
standing in the two-story front hall under the trompe l'oeil ceiling of a
painted blue sky and balconies in the Venetian style. ''On Christmas Day they'd
always be alone, just with us, the staff and our families. The dogs would be
running around getting presents, too.''
Pug dogs
are a main theme of the decor at Le Bois. There are photographs and sketches of
the Windsors' dogs, as well as small china pugs and pug-patterned cushions.
The formal
parts of the house seem in good shape. Missing are the 18th-century French
furniture, bibelots and china that the Duke and Duchess gave to Versailles and
other French museums 20 years ago, retaining their use during their lifetimes.
The
furnishings at Le Bois appear sparse in contrast to Mr. Johnson's recollections
of the many antiquing trips the Duchess took with a friend, Lady Mendl (the
decorator Elsie de Wolfe). ''If she hesitated,'' Mr. Johnson said, ''Lady Mendl
would say:
'Go on! Buy
it! It might come in useful someday.' ''
In the main
drawing room, the pale blue 18th-century paneling that the Duchess bought from
an old chateau is more striking than the remaining furniture - except for the
almost theatrically simple leather-topped desk on which the Duke, when he was
Edward VIII, signed his abdication in 1936. Mr. Fayed has offered the desk to
the British Government, which has not yet accepted the offer.
Below
stairs, in the huge, primitive kitchen, tiles are missing and paint is peeling.
According to Mr. Fayed, much of the money for repairs will be spent in the
kitchen and on new heating and air-conditioning systems, plumbing and roofs,
all of which slid into disrepair during the Duchess's 10-year illness.
Most
evocative of the couple's presence is the second floor, where their bedrooms
are separated by the cosy boudoir that they used as a dining room when alone.
The Duchess's bathroom is spacious, but has a small, shabby porcelain tub under
a regal trompe l'oeil canopy. In the Duke's bedroom is his favorite possession,
a chimney sweep doll. It sits next to a pincushion on which, according to Mr.
Johnson, the Duke's mother, Queen Mary, had cross-stitched the motto ''What Is
Home Without Pleasure?''
Behind the
bed in which the Duke died is an ornate velvet hanging embroidered with the
royal coat of arms and the motto of the Order of the Garter. Another strikingly
personal note is the host of kilts, plaid suits, dinner jackets and shoes, some
of which date from the 1920's, in the Duke's dressing-room closets.
Glass-fronted drawers are full of neatly laundered shirts made for him by the
London haberdashers Turnbull & Asser -now owned, incidentally, by Mr.
Fayed.
In the
Duchess's closet hang carefully tended dresses, including the navy linen coat
dress by Dior that she wore when Queen Elizabeth came to tea just before the
death of the Duke, her uncle, in 1972. In a linens room are a dozen red
footman's livery jackets edged with tarnished gold braid that the Duke brought
with him from Buckingham Palace. ''I always used to wear one of these when I
served at one of our big dinners,'' Mr. Johnson said.
Mr. Johnson
said his favorite garment was a long beaver-lined overcoat with an astrakhan
collar that belonged to the Duke's father, George V. ''He wore that every
winter I knew him,'' Mr. Johnson said. ''Her royal highness used to say,
'David, the fashion is short this year; you must cut that coat off.' But he'd
say: 'No, this was my father's. I'm not going to shorten it.'
''I looked
everywhere for this coat,'' Mr. Johnson said. ''I finally found it in the
Duchess's closet. She kept it with her all that time.''