La Malmaison – a Belle Époque villa for art on the Croisette

Built in 1863 as an annex of the Grand Hôtel and later the golfers' club of a Russian grand duke, La Malmaison is now Cannes's art centre – reopened in 2025 with three times the exhibition space and a café on the roof.

Halfway along the Croisette, between the Palais des Festivals and the Martinez, stands a white villa that looks like a survivor – which is exactly what it is. La Malmaison is the last trace of the nineteenth-century Grand Hôtel, whose site is now occupied by the Mondrian Cannes, and it has had more lives than most buildings in town: hotel annex, gentlemen's club, tea room and, for half a century, the town's showcase for modern and contemporary art.

After a long renovation it reopened on 31 January 2025, its exhibition space tripled and modernised, with a café-restaurant, the Café Olympe, on the roof.

01A hotel annex and a golfers' club

The villa was built in 1863 on the site of an older house, the Maison Daver, to designs by Marius Blond of Grasse, the architect of the Grand Hôtel, as the hotel's annex. In 1901 it was enlarged at the initiative of Grand Duke Michael of Russia and became the Cercle des Golfeurs, the clubhouse of the Old Course golf club at Cannes-Mandelieu, which spared members the long trip to the country club at La Napoule.

It was fitted out with salons, boudoirs and smoking rooms, a billiard room, a reading room, a dining room, a tea room and eighteen bedrooms with central heating, electricity and the telephone. Charity galas were held there and music played in the bandstand; together with the Grand Hôtel and the Cercle Nautique, it was one of the great attractions for the winter visitors. In 1935 the tea room was run by the boxer Georges Carpentier.

Exhibitions began to be held there from 1945, and on 12 February 1970 the villa passed to the town, which has used it ever since for exhibitions of modern and contemporary art.

02The building

La Malmaison stands in the south-east corner of what was the Grand Hôtel's garden. Its style is eclectic with a baroque streak: an asymmetrical, composite building in three parts, with a basement, a raised ground floor running right through the house with entrances to the north and the south, and three upper floors. Its own garden of Washingtonia palms was dug up for the Marriott hotel's car park and recreated on top of it.

Insider tip

Finish on the roof at the Café Olympe.

The 2025 renovation kept the heritage façades but tripled the exhibition space within. Shows change through the year, and the centre closes while each one is installed and taken down, so check the programme before you go.

03Visiting

From September to June the centre is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 10.00–13.00 and 14.00–18.00; in July and August it opens every day from 10.00 to 19.00. Last entry is thirty minutes before closing. Pair a visit with a drink on the roof and a walk along the Croisette towards the Martinez.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.