Résidence Helianthe

In 1882, Count Cristiano Arturo Antonio Heeren y Masa settled in Biarritz and built the estate that now forms Hélianthe’s left wing. He was a Prussian-born Spanish naturalized merchant whose wealth came from sugar trading between Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. His family took part in the resort’s social life until the start of the Great War. Because of the anti-German suspicion at the time, linked to their ancestry, they sought refuge in St Sébastien and never returned to France. A new owner from Béarn, an industrialist, later turned the villa into a hotel. In 1920 it became a medical establishment called Hélianthe.