There’s a new house for sale in Villefranche-sur-Mer and it costs a cool $69 million. Which sounds absurd until you remember this is one of the most sought after spots of the French Riviera, where even the sunlight seems expensive and every second driveway appears to contain either a vintage Ferrari or a retired hedge fund manager in linen trousers.
The property, listed through Côte d’Azur Sotheby’s International Realty, sits on nearly two acres above the bay, tiered down the hillside in neat white blocks and sheets of glass. Very contemporary. Very geometric. The sort of place where you suspect every cushion has been karate-chopped into shape before guests arrive.
The sea sits directly ahead, vast and annoyingly beautiful, shimmering away toward the horizon exactly as postcards insist it should.
The house itself spans almost 10,000 feet, terraced down the hillside in stages. You move through it gradually, with rooms opening toward the sea at almost every turn. And the best thing is that every level seems to open onto another garden, another lounge area, another place to sit with a drink and quietly wonder where your life went wrong financially.
Inside, the architecture stays clean and contemporary without drifting into that cold, echoing emptiness many modern mansions suffer from. The double living room splits into two sections, one of them rising up beneath a double-height ceiling that probably improves acoustics for saying things like, “Darling, where’s the sommelier?”
Still, there’s warmth here. Huge stone walls break up the polished surfaces, and textured wood paneling gives the space some actual character. You can imagine living in it without feeling as though you’re trapped inside a luxury watch boutique.
And the glass. There’s miles of it.
Massive sliding doors framed in black steel open straight onto terraces overlooking the grounds below. I suspect the owners spend most evenings drifting in and out with alarming quantities of rosé while the sun slowly dissolves into the Mediterranean. Frankly, fair enough.
The kitchen leans heavily into the sort of understated extravagance wealthy people adore. A giant island carved from Bianco Curia marble stretches through the middle of the room and doubles as a breakfast bar for six. Though I imagine “breakfast” here probably involves fresh figs, tiny pastries, and someone discussing offshore banking before noon.
Warm timber cabinetry softens the room nicely, and there’s a suspended pot rack hanging above the island which gives the whole thing a faintly serious culinary atmosphere, even though no one spending $69 million on a house has cooked their own pasta sauce since the Sarkozy administration.
Nearby, the dining room carries on the natural-material theme with brass accents, sculptural stone artwork, and a chandelier that resembles some glowing geological specimen discovered in a cave by archaeologists wearing black turtlenecks.
Elsewhere in the house, things become increasingly decadent in that wonderfully Riviera way.
There’s a library, naturally. A cinema room. A games room with its own bar. A gym. A wine cellar and tasting room, because simply drinking wine in France apparently no longer suffices without a dedicated ceremonial chamber attached to it. There’s also a separate guest apartment, which is useful because wealthy people seem constitutionally incapable of visiting one another without requiring independent accommodation.
The house has seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, though the primary suite clearly receives most of the attention – as expected. You have floor-to-ceiling glass doors that slide open directly onto a private balcony overlooking the sea and then then there’s the main bathroom. It has dual rain showers opening toward another balcony where a copper soaking tub sits outside in the sea air.
Outside, the grounds continue almost indefinitely. There are landscaped gardens arranged around shaded lounge spaces, alfresco dining areas beneath pergolas, several koi ponds and reflecting pools, and a summer kitchen built for long lunches that quietly become dinners.
The swimming pool overlooks the coastline below, naturally. Because at this level of property ownership, even your pool has a better view than most boutique hotels.
And then, because this is southern France and people here remain committed to leisure with almost militant determination, there’s also a turf padel court and a pétanque court tucked into the gardens.
Which rather sums the whole thing up. For $69 million it could be yours.
