A little gem, Syam Palladian villa

This is a Neo-Palladian house, an architectural style coming from Italy during the Renaissance period.

This villa was built by Emmanuel Jobez: his father, Claude Jobez, founded a factory in Syam in 1810 and developed the metallurgy in the area.

Claude raised a house on the estate, but the current villa was built by Emmanuel in 1826. The French architect Champonnois built it in two years... between 1826 and 1828.

It's a Palladian house, so we have something like a Roman temple, with rooms surrounding a main area. In fact, in middle of this three-storey house, we have a rotunda light up by a glass roof distributing all the rooms...

A rotunda where the owners organized parties! On the second floor, we have a library (30 000 books were gathered here by Emmanuel's son, Alphonse!).

Unfortunately, Emmanuel passed away by accident in 1828: the house's building works were just finished...

The villa was abandoned, but it was finally restored in 1860 by Alphonse Jobez, mayor of Syam. He even moved in the house, restored the outhouses and re-laid out the park at the end of the 19th century.

Alphonse also took over the forge: he cared a lot about the well-being of his workers. He instituted a great social plan, with retirement, and so on.

But our factory was in competition with English factories in the middle of the 19th century and it came across some difficulties. Despite that, the Syam forge is still working!