The Van Bree Crypt and Chapel

From 1933, the Belgian industrialist Firmin Van Bree commissioned the architect André Pavlovsky to build the villas Santa Barbara, San Fermin and Los Escudos, as well as Basque motels. These were built on the edges of the Sainte-Barbe cliffs, specifically on part of the old Golf des Anglais (Golf Course of the Englishmen), which was used from 1893 until 1915. In 1954, this unusual character also had a chapel and monumental crypt built there, where he was buried in 1960. The chapel has two stained glass windows from the workshops of Francis Chigot, master glassmaker and the person behind the Gare des Bénédictins (Benedictines train station)’s glasswork in Limoges. The crypt’s entrance door, made out of wenge wood, is decorated with crosses from the Katanga region, which serve as a reminder of Firmin Van Bree’s attachment to Congo.