Photo by Magdalena J. Zaborowska
Excerpt from “The Last Days of James Baldwin’s House in the South of France” by Magdalena J. Zaborowska
“When I returned to the site of James Baldwin’s house in June 2017, its remnants were hard to see from the street. The developer who owned it, and had had two-thirds of the structure bulldozed in 2014, erected large, colorful billboards advertising soon-to-be built luxury villas clustered around an expansive swimming pool. The ironic name of this new incarnation of the famous writer’s house and garden was to be ‘Le Jardin des Arts’; the sales were held by Sotheby’s and advertised 19 ‘grandly’ chic apartments with ‘a panoramic view of the sea,’ urging potential buyers to ‘reserve yours now!’
“Behind a new, locked, black metal gate stood the gatehouse, stripped of its hot pink flowering vines and carelessly transformed into a real estate office for those who could afford the best views of the Mediterranean. It was segregated from the main house by a huge billboard sporting the image of the future swimming pool, with the inevitable couple of frolicking vacationers in the water. A cleverly camouflaged door inside that image led to the site; Chez Baldwin’s diminished façade, only partially visible behind it, appeared blackened, as if by smoke.”
