Le Vicomte de Noailles

Charles de Noailles (26 September 1891 in Paris – 28 April 1981), Arthur Anne Marie Charles, Vicomte de Noailles, was a French nobleman and patron of the arts. Charles was born in Paris on 26 September 1891, the son of François Joseph Eugène Napoléon de Noailles and Madeleine Marie Isabelle Dubois de Courval. He married Marie-Laure Bischoffsheim on 9 February 1923 and the couple moved into 11 Place des États-Unis in Paris. Charles' mother gave them a plot in Hyères, for which first Mies van der Rohe and then Le Corbusier was asked to design a house. Ultimately, they asked Robert Mallet-Stevens, who would design Villa Noailles.Their first daughter, Laure, was born on 8 September 1924. In December 1925, their house in Hyères was finished, and Charles and Marie-Laure would continue to expand Villa Noailles over the years. Natalie, their second daughter, was born 28 December 1925.According to the memoirs of Alexis de Redé (1922–2004), Marie-Laure was asked: 'Charles, he likes men, or does he like women?' She always replied: "Charles? He likes flowers." In fact he preferred men, as Marie-Laure discovered early in their married life, when she happened to come to his bedroom one afternoon and found him in bed with his good-looking gym instructor. But the incident was not discussed. They lived lives in part separate, in part together, and in many ways as a devoted couple, telephoning and writing to each other every day when they were apart. And even when in the same house, she would write him a letter and push it under his door, and promptly he would reply.Charles died on 28 April 1981 in Grasse.