The place

“In Milly, I found the rarest thing in the world: a frame.” — Jean Cocteau

In 1946, as filming wrapped on La Belle et la Bête, Jean Cocteau longed to leave Paris behind and find a refuge in the countryside. Jean Cocteau and Jean Marais visited the property and, captivated, acquired it. Once the former outbuildings of the Château de la Bonde, built starting in the 13th century, the House is a handsome 17th-century dwelling built of local stone, encircled by a garden crossed by canals. It forms the southern wing of a larger structure that once served as the château’s entrance from the town. The finely kept façade on the rue du Lau features two vaulted doorways framed by two corbelled turrets of brick and stone.

1947–1963: Jean COCTEAU

“This was the house that had been waiting for me… It shows me the example of the absurd stubbornness of plants… The water of the moat and the sun paint their shifting false marbles on the walls of my room.”

In 1947, Jean Cocteau moved into the House at Milly-la-Forêt, while keeping his Parisian apartment at the Palais Royal. With the help of his friend Madeleine Castaing, a decorator, he furnished his living quarters. The ground-floor sitting room reveals an eclectic, poetic world — intimate, yet wide open to the outdoors. Upstairs, the bedroom, entirely papered in leopard print, and the adjoining antechamber that serves as a study, offer glimpses of the thick walls and towers of the neighboring château — a quiet nod to the enchanted world of La Belle et la Bête. For the last sixteen years of his life, until his death in 1963, Jean Cocteau lived and worked there, welcomed his friends, and took part in the life of the village.

Curious Objects

A lover of unusual objects and an inveterate collector, Jean Cocteau surrounded himself at Milly with the things he loved. The furniture and objects filling the rooms mirror the poet himself and his taste for beauty. A narwhal tusk sits beside a Gothic-style cabinet; André Gide’s armchair faces the mirror given to him by Coco Chanel. A gift from his friend, the painter and set designer Christian Bérard, a very large drawing of Oedipus and the Sphinx lends the whole an air of a cabinet of curiosities. Part of the drawings once kept in the House were transferred to the State in lieu of taxes in 2019 and entered the national collections. They are now held at the Musée national d’art moderne (Centre Pompidou).

The Temporary Exhibition Rooms

Part of the first floor has been turned into an exhibition space, so that visitors can discover a new temporary exhibition each year. A flexible space, its walls painted by the artist Jackie Hyde, open on each side and restaged for every exhibition, it invites visitors to wander and discover at their own pace. A screening room offers the chance to end the visit with a film or documentary highlighting Cocteau the filmmaker — surrealist ahead of his time, and admired by the Nouvelle Vague.

The second floor houses Jean Marais’s bedroom, now also transformed into a temporary exhibition room.

The Garden

With each turning season, the garden transforms itself. Traced by the moat of the Château de la Bonde, it offers a wander through a richly living flora. In spring, freesias, peonies, and irises come into their own; in summer, the roses take over; autumn belongs to the anemones, winter to the hellebores. The sheer variety of species will delight the most curious wanderer. Several spaces give the garden its shape: in front of the House, a pear tree rises at the center of a bed ringed with flowers; behind it, the sculptures so dear to Jean Cocteau hold court in what was once the kitchen garden. Beyond the little bridge lie the orchard and its four apple-bordered squares — Reine des Reinettes, Akane, and other Melrose varieties. Wandering among them, one comes upon the medicinal plants — henbane, belladonna, Milly peppermint — which once served the poet as models for the paintings in the chapel. A pause on the deck chairs, tucked in one of the orchard’s quiet corners, awaits those who feel at home there.

Following the example of Jean Cocteau, who once welcomed the village children to play in his garden, the House offers outdoor games for the youngest visitors and those who accompany them.