Eureka House

Eureka was built around 1830 and is among the largest Creole houses left on the island, a timber mansion with wide verandas on all sides, a shingled roof and, by the count that has become its nickname, 109 doors and windows arranged to move air through the rooms in the days before fans. It passed to the Le Clezio family in 1856 and stayed with them for nearly 120 years, until it was sold in 1975; it opened as a museum in 1986. The interior keeps period furniture, maps, a Chinese and Indian ceramic collection and a nineteenth-century bathroom with an early shower arrangement. Behind the house the garden drops into the Moka ravine, where a path leads to waterfalls on the Riviere Moka. A restaurant on the veranda serves Creole food.

History

Built in 1830, the house was bought from an Englishman in 1856 by Eugène Le Clézio, the first Mauritian President of the Supreme Court and an ancestor of the Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio. It stayed in the family for nearly 120 years, was sold in 1975 and opened to the public in 1986 (Wikipedia, Eureka House).

What to look for

• The veranda house - the timber mansion with its wraparound verandas.
• Period rooms - furniture, maps and ceramics of the estate period.
• The old bathroom - the nineteenth-century water arrangements.
• The ravine falls - the waterfalls on the path below the garden.

When to go

May to December for the drier weather and easier walking down to the falls. Mornings are cooler. The house is open daily but check hours, which shorten in the low season.

What to expect

The path down to the waterfalls is steep, slippery and takes twenty minutes each way. Interpretation in the house is limited and largely self-guided. The estate presents planter life without much on the labour that supported it. Moka catches more rain than the coast.

Nearby

Le Pouce rises above; Port Louis lies northwest.

Key facts