 During his successful 1817 military campaign to pacify the east coast, Radama I—son and successor of Andrianampoinimerina—was favourably impressed by the houses he saw in Toamasina that had been built by newly arrived Creole merchants from Mauritius and Reunion.Radama invited one of them, a craftsman named Louis Gros, to return with him to Antananarivo to redesign Bevato as a home for his principal wife, Rasalimo.The new Bevato reportedly featured two stories, much like the houses Radama had seen in Toamasina.