48 hours in Arcachon

Nouvelle-Aquitaine/2023

The "town of the four seasons" (and its neighbor Pyla-sur-Mer) has long been uncomfortable with its medical past, and until the 1970s lived a somewhat hidden life. A past it is now proud to defend and safeguard.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter... Let's head for the "winter city" on the heights. It all began in the mid-19th century with the Pereire brothers, Émile and Isaac, businessmen who decided to buy the railroad line linking Bordeaux to La Teste. Until the 1820s, Arcachon was little more than a dune covered with sand, pine trees and a few fishermen's huts. The fashion for sea bathing, followed by Napoleon III's imperial decree of 1857, made the Bassin a popular summer resort for the invigorating effects of the ocean. But while Arcachon attracted high society in summer, it was a different story in winter. The solution lay in the scourge of the century: tuberculosis. The plan was to turn the town into an open-air sanatorium, with numerous villas where doctors would visit patients. The patients, on the other hand, would come with their families, stroll around, take part in social events and play at the Moorish casino. From 1863 to 1870, the Pereire brothers bought some 50 hectares of pine forest on the heights of the town and built 96 rental "chalets", veritable architectural gems. Their aim was to reproduce in the Basin the model of the Swiss villages favored by aristocrats during the winter. The chalets feature a semi-buried first floor, a second floor with reception rooms, and a second floor with bedrooms and balconies. You can recognize them by their alternating ashlar and brick, their elaborate wooden frameworks and their roofs adorned with serrated mantling, like the Antonio or Brémontier villas. Right, left, up, up, down: allée du Docteur-Pereira, allée Faust or Velpeau, Sully or Hennon... the tour continues through the winding streets of the "winter city", whose curves, on the advice of doctors, were designed to avoid draughts and break the brisk winds of the oceanic climate. The result is that you gain 1 to 2 degrees compared with the "summer city"! Take a deep breath and enjoy the turpentine fragrances that attracted so many European aristocrats. The success of Arcachon's health resort soon prompted wealthy citizens and developers to buy up plots of land and build villas to rent to the sick. Owners and architects vied with each other in imagination. Moorish, Gothic, neo-colonial... Villas Marguerite, Siébel, Giroflé or Castellamare, these "fofolles" represent the second generation of Arcachon villas. For eighty years, the sick and the healthy flocked from all over the world. Then, as hygiene improved, the number of tuberculosis patients dropped, leading to a decline in the number of customers. But above all, it became clear (at last!) that tuberculosis was contagious. The only people who came to Arcachon were small groups. As a result, houses began to shrink in size, giving rise to the third generation of villas known as "les modestes". The World Wars, the Great Depression, the antibiotics boom, then mass beach tourism in the other South, towards the Riviera, took their toll on interest in Arcachon. The town, ashamed of its medical past, closed in on itself. Villas were bought up, demolished and replaced by houses built in the 1970s. In 1977, the abandoned Moorish casino burned down. The people of Arcachon became aware of their architectural heritage and joined forces to preserve it. Since 1985, the villas have been listed in the inventory of picturesque sites in Gironde. Today, most of them have been divided into apartments, but the prices of some of them, which have not yet been cut up, are reaching stratospheric levels. Arcachon is once again in the sights of investors. To the waterfront summer and winter towns have gradually been added the "autumn town" and the "spring town" to the east and west. The old fishermen's and oyster-farmers' houses are smaller and more modest, but just as charming as the high-rise villas. Some are miniatures of the latter, others more neo-colonial, neo-Renaissance or neo-Basque. But in the end, all are a perfect reflection of the fashions and fads of an era. Above all, over the course of the four seasons, they all reflect what Arcachon and the entire Bassin have become: one of the most desirable hot spots on the West Coast. Even if you like to appear relaxed. I. B.