Villa Jeanette

Scooby Dooby Doo, we love you.

The Scooby Doo house, real name Villa Jeanette is an abandoned wooden villa situated at the bottom of Chemin de l’Olivette.  Originally called Chalet Jeanette, the house was built in 1931 by the Nice architect Joseph Trellé, for Stepan and Jeannette Pekmézian, hence the name Villa Jeanette I am guessing.

Local photographer Dennis de Nice once called it the Scooby Doo house and I have called it that ever since. Standing abandoned over 40 years and also squatted for a while, the villa has recently been bought by a British couple who have had their eye on it for 12 years.

Inside Villa Jeanette time has literally stood still for forty years.

When the original owners passed away it was left to their son who never changed a thing inside. Sadly the new owners had already removed quite a lot of what was left by the time I visited. Apparently they found newspapers dated from the 50′ and 70’s, handwritten letters and a deceased Tortoise in a box. The box was in a cupboard where the original owners had probably left it to hibernate some time before they died.

The new owners of villa Jeanette didn’t want me to photograph what remained (apart from a few details) nonetheless it was still an honor to be invited inside this beautiful building. The house is actually pretty tiny inside belieing it’s exterior which looks quite large and imposing.

The ground floor consists of an entrance area, small kitchen, dining room and toilet.

Underfoot are beautiful patterned tiles which would probably cost you a fortune these days. A tiny staircase leads from the kitchen to the two small bedrooms on the first floor. One of which still has it’s original yellow art deco wallpaper and original lights with old fashioned toggle switches. My nan had the exact same switches in her house until she died a few years ago. The rooms in Villa Jeanette have probably been like this for decades.

Despite the look from the  outside it’s surprisingly bright inside this wooden structure once you open the shutters.

I wonder if it’s haunted, it feels like it  definately should be, but by frindly ghosts. I have dreamt of seeing inside into this spooky looking house for years so I was so happy that I finally had the chance to do so.

Christelle who’s family lives on the same street told me that she remembers the old man who used to live here and also that he had a big black Terranova dog. When the old man died the dog remained alone in the house.  Villa Jeanette was then inherited by his son who used to come reasonably regularly with his butler but didn’t live there or keep the dog.

The neighbours, including Christelles grandmother, would come and feed the big black terranova through the locked gates. Eventually the dog died too.  In Dec 2017 the son, at this stage in his eighties, also passed away and the villa was left to his ex wife. As the ex wife had no particular emotional connection to the villa she decided to sell it to on. As you can imagine there were plenty of locals who had their eye on it. Luckily for the new owners they stumbled across the ex wife first and the rest is history.

Now a new family will take on the legacy of this unique Cap d’Antibes villa. Let’s see what they do with it.

I really hope that Villa Jeanette will live on for many more decades to come.

To be continued.…………

*If you know anything interesting about the Villa Jeanette then please feel free to add a comment below. There is so little historical information available about it 🙁

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