Welcome to Villa Rustica

Since the end of the 19th century, a considerable number of Mosan villas have been built in the Meuse valley. They witness the development of holiday resorts at that time and most of the time reflected the desire of wealthy families, of small or recent nobility, or even rentiers, to display their social status.

It is a construction with four facades, more rarely three, with complex and articulated volumes, often decorated with terraces or galleries. The villa is established in a green environment with a first goal of holidaying. It houses, in an enclosed garden/park, a building in a traditional, classical, neo-classical or contemporary style, thus belonging to periods other than the 1900s, but which witnesses the same motivations: to benefit from the green environment of a garden, the valley and the presence of the river.

Arthur Puel, a merchant from Liège, entrusted the realization of the Villa Rustica to the architect Arthur Snyers in 1891. In 1911, the Villa underwent major modifications. The same year, Puel commissioned Snyers to build a villa on the land adjacent to Villa Rustica.

The Villa Rustica is located in a street with a funny name: rue Frappe-Cul (literally “Hit ass”).

But where does this name come from?

Contrary to a legend, the name of the street does not come from torture (serious, very painful, corporal punishment inflicted by justice on a condemned man) but from the beating of sticks on the horses’ rumps to make them go up a steep hill.

Indeed, the neighbourhood provided iron ore for the industries of the Burnot valley. In order to bring it there, horses carried heavy loads and very frequently had to be whipped on the hindquarters in order to move forward!