Villa Boulkine, the country house of the last Dey of Algiers

Some houses you visit; others you listen to. Villa Boulkine, in Hussein Dey, belongs to the second kind. Two centuries of Algiers history live within its white walls, and I wanted to tell that story as faithfully as possible, separating what we know from what we think we know.

Why I tell the stories of these houses

I am passionate about the houses that Algeria sometimes hides behind a boundary wall or beneath the patina of time. To me, real estate is a way for generations to speak to one another: a house captures a way of life, its codes, a way of living in the world. When it lasts through the ages, it passes all of that on to those who come after.

I have set myself a simple mission: to find these places, document them and present them, for those who will one day share the same passion. Villa Boulkine opens the series.

A country house in the fahs of Algiers

In Ottoman times, the hills and coastline around Algiers formed the fahs: countryside dotted with gardens and summer houses, the djenane, where the city's great families came to find cooler air.

It was in this landscape, at a place called Bidji-Kou, that the future Dey Hussein bought a plot of land in 1815. In 1820 he enlarged the estate by obtaining a neighbouring plot from the heirs of Sid Mohammed, agha of the spahis, in exchange for a house he owned in the city. In 1821 he had a large pleasure pavilion built there, set back a little from the sea, on a rise planted with groves.

The place left a lasting mark on the map of Algiers: the district, and later the municipality, still bear his name, Hussein Dey.

Hussein, the last Dey of Algiers

Born around 1765 in Vourla, near Smyrna, Hussein rose through the administration of the Regency until he was appointed dey in 1818. In the city he also owned the house known as Dar el Hamra.

His reign would be the last. In 1827, the so-called “fly-whisk incident” with the French consul, Pierre Deval, served as a pretext for a blockade and then for the 1830 landing. On 5 July 1830 Hussein left the Casbah; he went into exile a few days later and died in Alexandria in the late 1830s. His country house remained.

After 1830, the villa changes hands

In the first years of the conquest, French officers moved into the pavilion. General de Lamoricière lived there for a time and described marble basins, water jets and running fountains. From 1839 the estate housed a cavalry regiment, quartered in barracks built around the house.

Once the troops had left, the tobacco administration took over the site. It built vast storehouses and added artesian wells to the old bucket wells dug in Ottoman times.

1929: an account of a visit

In February 1929, a visit to the villa was reported in L'Afrique du Nord illustrée. The account stresses the house's excellent condition and the luxury of its decoration: tiles, carved marble, sculpted wood, painted ceilings and cedar doors that looked almost new.

It describes the sequence of a great Algiers house: the squifa, the entrance hall where visitors waited to be received, the guards' courtyard, then the large inner courtyard, the heart of the house, surrounded upstairs by a gallery resting on twisted white marble columns. The coffered ceilings with rosettes recall those of Dar el Hamra, the dey's other house.

“With houses like this, we no longer speak of material value, but of symbolic value.”

From the 20th century to today

In the 1950s the tobacco administration left the estate, which became a police school. After independence the property was assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture, then used as staff housing. It was later absorbed into the grounds of the Ettaâlibya high school, where generations of pupils knew it as the “Boulkine palace”.

The dey's pavilion was listed as national heritage on 19 October 1982. Listing did not stop it from deteriorating, and debates over its restoration went on for years. The villa was eventually fully restored: since 14 June 2023 it has housed the temporary headquarters of the Great Museum of Africa, pending construction of the museum's permanent building. The house covers about 900 m² and stands in a garden of nearly 1.2 hectares.

What we do not know yet

Telling the story of a house also means acknowledging its grey areas. These remain open:

• The origin of the name “Boulkine”. None of the sources I consulted explains it.
• Lalla Nafissa. It is often said that the villa was built for Lalla Nafissa, one of the dey's daughters. It is a beautiful story, but I found no written record of it: I share it as a tradition, not as an established fact.
• The alterations. The crenellated white façades and ceramic friezes visible today are reminiscent of the early 20th-century neo-Moorish style. They suggest that the house was transformed by its successive occupants, but I found no precise dating of this work.

If you have archives, family photos or memories from your school days, write to me: I will gladly add to this article and credit the source.

What the villa tells us

Villa Boulkine links the eras together: the Regency, the colonial period, independent Algeria, and today an institution looking out to an entire continent. Through its architecture it preserves a vision, a culture and, above all, an identity.

That is exactly what I will look for in every house I show you. There are still many like this one.

In pictures

Photos by Manazil Ihkem. Click a photo to enlarge it.