The second house is the Palace of Gustave Binger .  Gustave Binger was the first governor of the city. His palace was built in 1902. It was located on the Treich-Laplène Boulevard, the principal administrative district in front of the sea. It was composed by a first floor raised with a basement under it. A lot of rumors say that this basement was used for prisoners. On the front, there were stairs to go to the veranda next to the lounge. The walls were filled with little imported lime bricks. We could see the wharf, the garden, and the African Telegraph Company office from wide windows with blinds. In this first picture you can see the palace in 1902. 

 And in this second picture, you can see the actual state of the palace. 

  NB: It's incredible because i took this last picture a long time before to begin research on this subject.  And here you have an another view of the palace in 1990.

Today, we have two important houses which are still standing. 

The first is Verdier's house. 

Verdier house is an important monument of the city history. 

Arthur Verdier settled in 1867. In 1881 he became agronomist in the coffee culture with Amédée Brétignère. The 7th of April 1880, he obtained cultivated land in Elima by the king Amon N’Doufou de Krinjabo. He was also the founder of a French school in Elima. He has always seen natural treasures of this country like palm oil, acajou, and coffee.

Here you can see this fabulous house completely lost in the vegetation. 

It's like this that the France district was built. It was called by the Agnuanti "sand piece", because of its geographic situation. Work was important : they filled Moossou marshland, they destroyed the natives' houses and asked them to go away. Then, they built European houses on wood, iron or brick stilt with foundations in concrete.

Here you can see the "Quartier France". 

So, to restrict epidemics and other problems, the French government instituted a legislation for people and their houses. Homesteaders had to wear a cork helmet or a felt hat, sunglasses, large clothes, and to have a sunshade. Houses had to be built on a dry and vented hill.

In truth, the colony of Grand-Bassam was not an attractive pole for French people, and for many reasons. First the climate, which was very hot and humid and contributed to many diseases as we said before. Moreover, the disembarkation was very difficult because of tidal waves, there was the tropical forest not far away, and people thought that the natives were cannibals. Finally, the delivery of medicines and food was rare and difficult to obtain because of a bad communication between other trading posts and colonies. The climate was not suitable for a good conservation of food.

In the first picture you can see how high the waves are and how is difficult to pass it. 

In this second picture, you can see how Europeans resolved the problem. They built a wharf, a special platform to disembark without small boats.