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History
In 1832, while out hunting, Adrien Pignolet de Fresnes and Adam de Villiers discovered the springs, whose therapeutic and medicinal values were soon recognized. The first curists arrived and a village gradually grew up around the thermal springs. The spa, named in 1842 after Monsieur de Hell, Governor of “Madagascar and Dependencies”, reached its peak at the end of the 19th century. The island’s wealthy coastal classes, attracted by Hell-Bourg’s thermal baths, also came to enjoy the freshness of the Salazie cirque, in a hygienic movement that was very much in vogue at the time. Little by little, Hell-Bourg became a fashionable spa, and wealthy spa-goers built architecturally refined second homes here, such as the emblematic Villa Folio. Today, Hell-Bourg’s architectural wealth bears witness to this sumptuous era. Hell-Bourg is one of France’s “most beautiful villages”.
