A 15th-century villa thought to have once been film icon Brigitte Bardot’s summer retreat has been listed for £4.9 million (€5.9 million) on the French Riviera.
In the medieval village of Cabris, around 30 minutes’ drive from Cannes, the hilltop hideaway is said to have been lived in by the actress and singer just after her divorce from her first husband, the screenwriter Roger Vadim in the late Fifties.
Today Le Castelet, a former castle, counts 11 bedrooms in total — split between a main house and guest accommodation in converted stables.
There are two swimming pools, a classic boule court, 80-tree olive grove and private vineyard which produces thousands of bottles of wine to fill the cellar with each year according to the listing with Carlton International.
The villa’s current owners, a Swedish couple, have spent the last 25 years painstakingly renovating it piecemeal after they were selected to become the estate’s custodians by a family who trusted them to “keep the soul” of the property.
Careful modernisation works at the historical home have included transforming stables into the guest annexe and adding both a carport and a lift that make all three levels of the home accessible for wheelchair users.
“They [the current owners] love Provence and the hidden countryside,” said Mervi Ghiotti of Carlton International’s Valbonne office. “It has been a passionate project, done little by little, and it’s time for somebody else to take it on.”
“It’s really the hinterland of the French Riviera. It’s close to Cannes but when you go there you feel like you’re in a boutique hotel,” Ghiotti added.
Undoubtedly the star feature of the property, the main terrace with its infinity pool, sunbathing areas and 180-degree views of the Esterel Mountain range has been designed to feel as though cut into the hillside.
Homes of a similar size in the ultra-exclusive region tend to rent for between £20,000 and £25,000 a week.
Neighbours over the years have included French writer and film director Marcel Pagnol, known for his novels Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources – both adapted into films in the 1980s.
French actor Jean Marais, Bardot’s co-star in one of her earliest films School for Love (1955), lived a few hundred metres up the road from Le Castelet during the 1950s according to its current owners.
