Chateaux De La Croix Des Gardes

An idyllic château in Cannes

Surveying the Bay of Cannes and enjoying total privacy, the Château de la Croix des Gardes is currently the town’s largest belongings upwards for sale. Belonging to the Riviera’s airtight circle of legendary residences, this property ensconced in a fifteen-acre park can just be described with superlatives.

Gear up at the top of the loma of La Croix des Gardes, a few minutes from the harbour in Cannes, the Palais des Festivals and the world-renowned Croisette, the Château de La Croix des Gardes was built in the early 20th century. This well-known neighbourhood plays host to some of the most spectacular residences on the French Riviera, including the Villa Eléanore-Louise congenital in 1835 by Lord Henry Brougham and the Château Saint-Georges congenital by the British general John Taylor in the same era. These noble and early “holiday homes” gave the hill its nickname, the “English quarter”. In 1919, Paul Girod of Switzerland acquired the country at the top of the loma and decided to build an outstanding property which was caused six years afterward by Michael Goldman, the owner of Burma Jewellery, who sold it in 1960 to the owner of Perrier mineral water. Remodelled and enlarged in neo-Palladian style by English builder Alan Gore, the Château de La Croix des Gardes boasts an elegant Florentine-style facade harmoniously enhanced by its sublime panoramic backcloth of sky and sea. Set in the midst of over 25 acres of gardens, the residence offers living space of i,200 m2 in the château itself, plus a comfortable villa for guests, a house for staff, a hunting social club and several service quarters scattered around the park. The château has eight bedrooms including two magnificent suites, sublime marble bathrooms, and reception rooms which take retained the splendour of noble old features : parquet floors, fireplaces, ceilings of dizzy heights, precious woods and marble. The garden consists of many distinct areas and is enhanced by a 33-metre pool designed past Alan Gore in front of the château ; an orangery nestles in the paviion to the eastward, and a winter garden and Turkish pavilion complete the list of civilities in the park with its plethora of century-quondam trees, rare shrubs and plants. Enthroned at an altitude of 213 metres, the property enjoys a panoramic 360° view stretching from the snow-capped Alps to the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, dotted with the Lérins Islands. All the rooms in the Château offer views of the sea. All assets which were to enchant Alfred Hitchcock, who shot several scenes of his masterpiece “To Catch a Thief” here in 1955, with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. This amazing and legendary property volition allow its futurity owners to re-live the finest hours of the French Riviera !

Côte d’Azur Sotheby’s International Realty, 74, bd de la Croisette, Cannes (04 92 92 12 88).