Wild beauty nestled between the azure sea and fragrant hills, the Riviera is a haven of culture and beauty. While its beaches and sunny climate attract visitors, it is its flamboyant villas that offer one of the most beautiful journeys through time and maintain this eternal fascination. These homes of architects, sponsors or artists are real heritage jewels, often unknown to the general public. Here is a selection of six must-see villas, real works of art in the open air.
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, jewel of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
Classified as a historic monument, Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild has been the property of the Académie des Beaux-Arts since 1933. It was bequeathed a year before her death by its creator, Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild, heir to one of the largest financial dynasties in Europe. The place, which attracts thousands of visitors from around the world every year, combines architecture, art collections, and exceptional gardens. Concerts, exhibitions, nocturnal visits or private events, give life to this house-museum that continues to fascinate.
In 1905, Béatrice de Rothschild acquired land in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, a territory that was still wild, beaten by winds and waves. Against the advice of engineers, she had a villa built there inspired by Venetian and Florentine palaces, in a style combining Renaissance, Gothic and Baroque influences. The work will last seven years, mobilizing architects, gardeners and artisans from all over Europe.
Built in 1912, the villa offers spectacular views of the Mediterranean. Inside, each living room was designed as an art showcase, with a pronounced taste for the French 18th century. There are tapestries from the Manufacture des Gobelins, porcelain from Sèvres and Meissen, furniture by Riesener, art objects from all periods, master paintings, and a fully reconstructed Louis XVI lounge.
Outside, the Baroness designed nine themed gardens: the French-style garden, in the shape of a ship's bridge, cascaded down to the sea, punctuated by musical fountains that regularly come alive to the sound of great classical tunes. Around are a Spanish garden with its shaded patio, a Florentine garden, a lapidary garden, a Japanese garden with its red bridge, an exotic garden populated by cacti, a delicate rose garden, and a Provençal garden. There is also a temple of love.
Now the owner of the place, the Académie des Beaux-Arts perpetuates the wish of its creator, continuing to bring its original spirit to life with elegance in its programming of events.
1 Avenue Ephrussi de Rothschild, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
Villa E-1027, modernist manifesto in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
An icon of modern design, this white villa suspended above the sea is the work of Irish architect Eileen Gray, a pioneer of modernism. Built between 1926 and 1929, it integrates custom-designed furniture, open spaces and a minimalist aesthetic that breaks with the codes of the time. The city was created in collaboration with his companion, the architect and critic Jean Badovici. The name E-1027 is a code: E for Eileen, 10 for J, 2 for B, 7 for G, the initials of their two first names and names intertwined, an intimate and symbolic signature of their relationship.
The villa is designed as a manifesto of modernity, a radical break with the bourgeois architecture of the Belle Époque. Inspired by the functionalist ideas of Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement, E-1027 embodies a new philosophy of space: pure lines, open volumes, a modularity of uses. Eileen Gray designed multifunctional furniture (such as her famous adjustable table), sliding shutters, tubular steel railings, and cleverly orchestrated natural light effects. Each space is designed for comfort, freedom of movement, and a direct relationship with the outside world.
In the 1930s, after the couple broke up, Jean Badovici kept the villa and invited Le Corbusier, a leading architect of modernism, to it, who painted eight murals on the villa's interior walls.
After the Second World War, the villa sank into oblivion. Vandalized, it narrowly escaped ruin. Classified as a historic monument in 2000, the villa was then the subject of a long and complex restoration work, led by the Coastal Conservatory and the National Monuments Center. Only recently has Eileen Gray been fully recognized as a major figure in modern architecture. She is now celebrated as one of the great female figures of 20th century design, alongside Charlotte Perriand or Ray Eames.
Today, the villa is part of the Cap Moderne cultural site, alongside Le Corbusier's Cabanon and five camping units, and Thomas Rebutato's L'Étoile de Mer bar-restaurant.
Avenue Le Corbusier, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
Guided tour only, reservation required
Villa Noailles, a modern laboratory in Hyères
Hidden in the heights of Hyères, this avant-garde villa with a white geometric silhouette pursues its destiny as a center of artistic creation. Commissioned by the sponsors Marie-Laure and Charles de Noailles and designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1923, it welcomed figures such as Cocteau, Giacometti or Buñuel. Today, it has become a vibrant contemporary art center, hosting exhibitions, artist residencies and prestigious events. The most famous of these, the Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories, founded in 1986, reveals new talents on the global artistic scene every year.
At the origin of the villa, Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles, a couple of sponsors from the French aristocracy, passionate about art, literature and the avant-garde, determined to support the artists and the new ideas of their time.
Villa Noailles is an architectural UFO for the time. Located on the hillside, it deploys a cubist architecture made of concrete, bay windows, roof terraces and interlocking volumes. The architect Mallet-Stevens applied the precepts of emerging modernism: straight lines, absence of ornamentation, omnipresent light and integration of design into architecture. The interior is just as innovative: suspended stairs, skylights, minimalist furniture, ultramodern bathrooms, custom bookcase. The villa is designed as a total art, combining architecture, design, light, garden and comfort. The cubist garden, designed by Gabriel Guevrekian, a figure of the avant-garde, extends the geometric games of the house in a radical vegetable space.
Les Noailles welcome their friends artists, writers, musicians: Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, but also Giacometti, Mondrian, Brancusi... All the avant-garde parades in Hyères, works, exchanges.
After the Second World War, the villa was gradually deserted. Marie-Laure continued to stay there intermittently until her death in 1970. In 1973, the City of Hyères acquired it. Today, it is classified as a historical monument, and hosts an internationally renowned contemporary art center.
Montée de Noailles, Hyères
Guided tour upon reservation
Villa Kerylos, when Greece comes to Beaulieu-sur-Mer
Facing the sea, in the heart of the Baie des Fourmis and facing the peninsula of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Villa Kerylos, “sea swallow” in ancient Greek, is a faithful reconstruction of a noble house from ancient Greece. Incredibly realistic and refined, it was built in 1902 from an aesthete's dream, that of Théodore Reinach, archaeologist, politician and lover of Antiquity.
Born in 1860, Théodore Reinach had nurtured this crazy project of living in the antique style, not in a reconstructed ruin, but in a villa faithful to historical sources, while integrating modern comforts. He acquired spectacular land by the sea in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, and called on the architect Emmanuel Pontremoli to imagine an idealized reconstruction of a Greek house from the 2nd century BC, inspired by the residences of Delos and Rhodes.
The structure follows the typical layout of Hellenistic houses: a central peristyle, columned galleries, a triclinium (banquet hall), a library, a music room, and private baths. All the decorative elements (columns, frescoes, mosaic floors, bas reliefs) were made using ancient techniques, using precious materials: imported marbles, rare woods, bronzes, hand-woven fabrics. Each room is furnished with historical rigor. The beds are low and made of dark wood, the seats are sculpted as in ancient frescoes, the oil lamps have been recreated identically. The walls are decorated with paintings inspired by mythological scenes, made by artists under the direction of Pontremoli.
Reinach, who spent his winters there, welcomed artists, intellectuals and friends there, in a setting worthy of a Socratic dialogue. When he died in 1928, the villa was bequeathed to the Institut de France and has since been open to the public, managed by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux. It is classified as a historical monument.
Gustave Eiffel Street, Beaulieu-sur-Mer
%20(2)-TAILLE.avif)
Villa Eilenroc, pearl of Cap d'Antibes
This neoclassical villa, built in 1867, is located in a green area of 11 hectares. It offers a timeless stroll in the original Riviera, between pine forest, olive grove and rose garden. You can visit the state rooms, the collection of ancient perfumes, a nod to the olfactory history of the region, and you can immerse yourself in the Riviera's Dolce Vita.
The story begins in 1867, when a wealthy Dutch businessman, Hugh-Hope Loudon, called on Charles Garnier, the architect of the Paris Opera, to design a pleasure villa on this dream promontory of Cap d'Antibes, with breathtaking views of the Mediterranean and the Southern Alps. The name of the villa, Eilenroc, is a palindrome of the first name of his wife, Cornelie.
In the 20th century, Cap d'Antibes became a major winter vacation spot for the European aristocracy and upper middle classes. It passed into the hands of several wealthy owners, before being acquired in 1927 by the American couple Beaumont. Madame redesigns the interiors and enriches the gardens, which she wants to be sumptuous, exotic and romantic. It enriches it with Mediterranean and tropical species, pools and shaded corners conducive to conversations. Their villa became a place of reception where artists, politicians and aristocrats met.
Upon her death in 1982, Madame Beaumont bequeathed her property to the city of Antibes, under the condition of maintaining its integrity and opening it to the public. The 11-hectare estate is decorated with a splendid rose garden of several hundred varieties, some of which were created on the Riviera. A path of scents, a tribute to the olfactory heritage of Grasse (lavender, jasmine, verbena and lemongrass), and a Mediterranean park punctuated by umbrella pines, hundred-year-old olive trees and rare essences, offer a majestic panorama of Milliardaires Bay.
460 Avenue Mrs Beaumont, Antibes
The Villa is open on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
-TAILLE.jpg)
Villa Santo Sospir, a work of art by Jean Cocteau in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
Famous for having been entirely tattooed by Jean Cocteau, this villa was an artistic refuge in the 1950s. On each wall, the poet has left his mark: frescoes, mythological symbols, black line drawings and pastel colors give the whole a unique cachet. It is an intimate gallery and a place of pure creation, to be visited with emotion.
The story begins with Francine Weisweiller, a wealthy Parisian patron, former model, friend of artists and a free figure on the post-war Riviera. In 1948, she bought the villa built twenty years earlier on the heights of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, called “Santo Sospir”, “Saint Soupir”. In 1950, she invited Jean Cocteau, a famous poet, playwright and filmmaker, to spend a few days off. He will stay there for ten years! What was supposed to be a stay will become a total artistic project.
Very quickly, Cocteau gets bored. He takes a brush, a brush. He first drew an Apollo in charcoal above the chimney. Francine lets him do it and he continues to adorn the walls, the doors, the frames, and then the whole house. Inspired by Mediterranean mythology (Ulysses, Orpheus, Orpheus, Apollo, Dionysos), he draws clean, black lines, sometimes with light colors. He paints on marble, wood, lime, always freehand. He dramatizes places. A tapestry becomes a stage curtain, a staircase becomes an ancient temple. Santo Sospir becomes his self-portrait on the scale of a house, an intimate studio and a den of artists. Cocteau shot several sequences of the “Testament of Orpheus” there, and welcomed his friends: Jean Marais, Pablo Picasso, Yves Montand, Juliette Gréco, Christian Bérard, all fascinated by this house where art is everywhere.
After the death of Cocteau in 1963, then that of Francine Weisweiller in 2003, the villa remains intact, in a raw authenticity, which gives Santo Sospir a unique emotional power. Classified as a historical monument, the villa seems to still be inhabited by the presence of the artist. It is now open to the public through guided tours by reservation, in religious silence, to better listen to the poet's art.
14 Avenue Jean Cocteau, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
Photo cover: © Spiller
Associated places
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)
.avif)