Real Estate Nice DUBOUCHAGE à Nice
REAL ESTATE Bld DUBOUCHAGE quartier DUBOUCHAGE Prix m2
BOULEVARD DUBOUCHAGE — NICE
Urban history, villas and palaces | Architectural heritage dossier
1. Origins of the boulevard (1854)
In the early nineteenth century, Nice belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia. Gardens, rural properties and paths stretched north of the old town. In 1854, the Consiglio d’Ornato included Boulevard de l’Empeyrat in its plan for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste district. The route extended present-day Boulevard Victor-Hugo eastward beyond Avenue Jean-Médecin. Its width, plane trees, recessed buildings and enclosed gardens gave the thoroughfare a residential character.
The boulevard was subsequently named after Marc-Joseph du Gratet, Count of Le Bouchage (1746–1829), prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes under Napoleon I from 1803 to 1814. He did not personally create the road. Its former name, Empeyrat (or Empeirat), evokes a paved or stone-surfaced road in Provençal.
2. From country gardens to a fashionable winter resort
Before the boulevard was laid out, this area consisted of farmland, gardens, country houses and paths. Nice was centred around the Old Town and Place Masséna. Wealthy foreign visitors, especially British and Russian winter residents, increasingly sought land north of the town.
Following Nice’s annexation to France in 1860 and the arrival of the railway in 1864, industrialists, prominent citizens and European winter visitors settled in the area. Garden villas, income-producing apartment buildings and residential palaces multiplied. By the 1880s, the boulevard had become an elegant residential avenue. Later extensions and twentieth-century redevelopment transformed its appearance, although some nineteenth-century gates, gardens and façades survive.
The original urban design envisaged a broad, plane-tree-lined roadway, buildings set back from the pavement, private front gardens and wrought-iron fences. These features explain the surviving small gardens and railings along the boulevard.
3. Villa Sainte-Anne, later Villa Georges — 10 Boulevard Dubouchage
Built in 1877 for the Parisian confectioner Boissier, Villa Sainte-Anne was later purchased by Catherine Dolgorukov, Princess Yurievskaya (Youriewski), widow of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Alexander II (1818–1881), emperor from 1855 to 1881, is remembered for abolishing serfdom in 1861, legally emancipating millions of Russian peasants.
While still married to Empress Maria Alexandrovna, Alexander fell in love with Catherine, who was 29 years younger. Their relationship began in the 1860s and caused scandal at the imperial court. After the empress’s death, Alexander married Catherine in July 1880 in a morganatic marriage, and she received the title Princess Yurievskaya. On 13 March 1881, the tsar was assassinated in Saint Petersburg by revolutionaries using a bomb.
Widowed at the age of 33, Catherine gradually settled on the French Riviera. In 1891, she acquired the villa and commissioned Vincent Levrot to enlarge it by adding an upper storey. She spent much of her later life there and died in Nice on 15 February 1922, aged 74. She is buried in the Orthodox cemetery of Caucade. The Ras-Allard family acquired the property in 1923, and three additional floors were added in 1932. Villa Georges thus preserves a remarkable connection to the Russian imperial family.
4. Villa Rambourg, Villa Seigle and the municipal library — 21 bis Boulevard Dubouchage
Around 1870, Louis Rambourg, a wealthy Parisian industrialist, member of the Allier departmental council and co-director of the Commentry ironworks, planned a residence in Nice. He commissioned the Italian architect Bernardin Maraini. The building permit application was filed on 28 July 1875. The villa stood on approximately 600 m² of land, with an ornamental garden, balustraded terrace and richly decorated interiors. It was mentioned in publications on Nice’s finest villas as early as 1877.
In 1896, Rambourg sold the property to a Lyon industrialist named Seigle, and it became Villa Seigle. In 1923, the City of Nice purchased it to relocate its municipal library from the premises on Rue Saint-François-de-Paule, which had become too small. The library opened in 1925. The building is associated with the Romain-Gary library.
5. Inventory of even-numbered addresses
4–4 bis Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Architects / project managers: Jules Febvre and Louis Sarrette.
6 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Palais de la Paix, 1914; architect Charles Belon; corner of Avenue Maréchal-Foch.
8–8 bis Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Castel Dubouchage, 1958; designed by Dikansky father and son.
10 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Villa Georges, built in 1877; additional floors in 1891 and 1932.
14 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — 1958 building by Dikansky father and son.
16–16 bis Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — 1965 building by Georges Dikansky.
18 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Villa Simonneau, 1875.
20 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — 1951 building by Alexandre Pace.
22 ter Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — 1931 project submitted by Henri Perino; plans by Louis Constantin and Joseph Cordone.
24 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — L’Ambassadeur, 1953; Richard Augier.
26–28 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Le Fontainebleau, 1956; Honoré Aubert.
28 bis Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Villa Fernandez / Villa Amélie, circa 1870; corner of Rue Lamartine; Séraphin Goiran.
32–34 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Les Empereurs, built in the early 1950s by René Livieri; distinct from Villa Amélie.
6. Inventory of odd-numbered addresses
7 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Maison Icard, 1876.
15 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Palais Dubouchage, 1898; Jules Sioly.
17 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Maison Bonneville, 1897.
19 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Antarès: original project in 1881 by Séraphin (Stéphane) Goiran and Paul Martin; two additional modern-style floors added around 1970 by Albert Magnier, with alterations to the entrance.
21 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Château Dubouchage: building permit plans dated 1884 by Victor Rolland. A large, set-back apartment building with a symmetrical composition, two side rotundas, sculpted female heads, decorative balcony brackets and a wrought-iron entrance canopy. At Rue Foncet and Rue Tonduti de l’Escarène.
21 bis Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Villa Rambourg, 1875, by Bernardin Maraini; renamed Villa Seigle in 1896; municipal library from 1925.
27 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Built circa 1873 by Louis Dunski; additional floor(s) circa 1952 by René Livieri.
29–31 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Georges Dikansky; construction date to be verified; near Rue Blacas.
33 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Former Villa La Terrasse / Maison Thiboul / Villa Baquis, circa 1862; replaced by Résidence Azur, designed in 1974 by Jean-Claude Aragon.
35 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Maison Bellet, 1874; later used by the Salvation Army; demolished circa 1967 and replaced by Le Speranza.
37–41 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — Le Consul, 1975; replaced a nineteenth-century building used as a Protestant place of worship by the Reformed Church of France.
43 Boulevard Dubouchage, 06000 Nice — 1877 building associated with Alfred Rossetti; Charles Dalmas and Société Marseillaise de Crédit are mentioned in connection with work requiring further clarification.
7. The boulevard entrance and other historic villas
At 22 Avenue Jean-Médecin, the “22 Victoire” building, attributed to Joseph Borras (1870), marks the boulevard’s western entrance. Villa Amélie, formerly Villa Fernandez, at 1 Rue Lamartine / 28 bis Boulevard Dubouchage, dates from the nineteenth century and should not be confused with the 1950s Les Empereurs development opposite.
At 33 Boulevard Dubouchage, near Rue Blacas, Villa La Terrasse was also known as Maison Thiboul and Villa Baquis. Aimé Thiboul acquired the original house in 1861. It was altered under Adolphe Baquis and later Dr Joseph Chini, with work by Charles Dalmas in 1909. It was demolished around 1976 and replaced by Résidence Azur. At number 35, Maison Bellet later housed the Salvation Army before its demolition around 1967. At numbers 37–41, a former Protestant place of worship was replaced by Le Consul in 1975.
8. Historical timeline
Before 1854 — Empeyrat path and garden properties.
1854 — Boulevard planned by the Consiglio d’Ornato.
1860 — Nice becomes part of France.
1864 — Arrival of the railway.
1860–1885 — Expansion of villas, hotels and bourgeois apartment buildings.
1875 — Villa Rambourg.
1877 — Villa Sainte-Anne / future Villa Georges.
1881–1884 — Antarès and Château Dubouchage projects.
1891 — Alterations commissioned by Princess Yurievskaya.
1923–1925 — Acquisition and opening of the municipal library.
1932 — Additional floors added to Villa Georges.
1950–1980 — Replacement of numerous villas by modern apartment buildings.
9. Architectural significance
The boulevard’s distinctive character was not accidental: it emerged from a carefully planned 1854 urban design, with specific rules governing street width, gardens and the positioning of buildings. Its surviving historic villas and later apartment blocks together tell the story of Nice’s evolution from a Mediterranean town into an international winter resort and, ultimately, a modern city.
Reference material mentioned in the original French dossier
