Maison à chapeau de gendarme

The house with a policeman's hat is recognizable by its Italian-style pediment. It is famous for having been the main set of the film "La Cuisine au Beurre" with Bourvil and Fernandel, shot in Martigues.
The house in a gendarme's hat echoes a Baroque architecture that spread from Italy to the rest of Europe during the 18th century. This was built in the 17th century and is characterized by the shape of its "scalloped" gable and its wrought iron balcony. A large number of them would have been built by masons who came directly from Italy.

Appreciated by painters and photographers, the facade of this house brings effects of movement and contrast with the aim of astonishing. A theatrical decor in front of which passers-by stop and which hides a sober architecture.

In the Ile district, in the heart of Martigues, you can see that the Gendarme's hat house is open when you look at the canal from the Saint-Sébastien bridge. If we take the time to look at the layout of the streets, we will notice that they are stretched obliquely. This means that at the edge of the quay, this creates shifts at the level of the Quai Marceau, opposite the Impasse Poterne and opposite the rue de l'Hospice.

For thirty years, the Island has been transformed but this house has kept the same character as before. It remains a strong image of Martigues.

It housed an eel smokehouse on the ground floor for at least a hundred years. It was in 1963 that Gilles Grangier decided to settle there for the filming of the film "La Cuisine au Beurre" with Bourvil and Fernandel. The facade of the house in Gendarme's hat represents that of the restaurant in the film.