Immeuble Garacci-Bensa

Immeuble Garacci-Bensa stands in Nice as a nineteenth-century residence whose façade preserves the city’s changing architectural character. Its original rectangular villa rose around 1870 beside a garden, before the surrounding avenue reshaped the plot.

Charles Garacci, a local genre painter, began the construction, and Charles Bensa added two storeys between 1897 and 1904. Architect J. Thérési helped create the present form, while a low triangular wing became a cinema and later commercial premises. Stucco and sgraffito cover the façades with Apollo, Mercury, Diana, Erato, putti and fantastic animals. The south façade and part of the west façade received historic-monument protection in 1995.

Marble frames the entrance, whose ironwork transom carries Carlo Bensa’s monogram. Inside, painted ceilings survive in the second-floor apartment, including a salon with trompe-l’œil architecture, a floral medallion and reclining female figures. A turning staircase opens around a central void, while the roof distinguishes the main residence from the former cinema wing.