Domaine du Rayol

The Domaine du Rayol is a French garden. It is located in Rayol- Canadel- sur- Mer, between Le Lavandou and Cavalaire in the Var.

The estate was created in 1910 by Alfred Théodore Courmes as a retirement home. He laid around the house on a park and a fruit and vegetable garden. The couple sold the house to a real estate company that rebuilt it into a hotel. The park was sold in 1940 by the widow Thérèse Courmes to the aircraft manufacturer Henry Potez, who lived here during the Second World War. After the war, the site fell into disrepair as a summer residence, but could be saved from exploitation by real estate projects.

Since 1989 the area is owned by the Coastal Protection Agency ( Conservatoire du Littoral ). It commissioned in the same year Gilles Clément along with a redesign of the park.

He divided the park into several areas in which he planted each plant from an area of the world that have a Mediterranean climate similar climatic conditions. Thus, plants can be found from the Mediterranean area, from California, Chile, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and China. To this end, in part, the existing vegetation of the park was used with exotic plants. Another, irrigated, area shows subtropical plants from Central America.