Government House Troodos

Ann Villiers was the daughter of Governor Sir William Haynes Smith (1898-1904). She lived in Government House. Summers were spent by the British officials on the mountains of Troodos where a summer residence was built for the Governor. It was a modest compact stone building with a tiled roof and a small garden, looking like a cottage of the British countryside. The pine trees of Troodos framed the composition. Their strong green colour, combined with the red roof of the cottage, add to the crispness of the painting. Government Cottage demonstrates the British presence which already raised the first colonial architecture and made orderly adjustments to the areas surrounding the new buildings. In this case, a tennis court is laid out in front of the cottage. The attempt to graft one culture upon another persisted in architecture until well into the twentieth century. It succeeded when executed in an appropriate environment, such as in the green, cool mountains, but often produced anomalies elsewhere, such as with the wooden Government House in Nicosia. The green shutters of the building became a characteristic colour of British architecture in Cyprus. A small plaque commemorates the fact that Arthur Rimbaut, the acclaimed French poet, worked as an engineer during the building of Government Cottage.