Property: Villa Price in EUR: €11,200,000

Beautiful Belle Epoque Villa which belonged to Coco Chanel nr Monaco

Luxury Villa for sale in France

This magnificent 7 bedroom Belle Epoque Villa built at the turn of the century, with spectacular views across to Monaco.

Set on the hillside in 7000 sq. metres of flower filled gardens and its own private pathway to the beach, this is truly a villa of distinction. Once owned by Coco Chanel and rented for several years by Winston Churchill whilst writing his memoirs. Marlene Deitrich also used to dine here…

The Villa has it own small in-out drive with parking for two cars and an additional 2 parking spaces in a private car park less than two minutes' walk away. As the property is set on the hillside one enters on the third floor to a large entrance hall, then an impressive sweeping marble staircase leading down to the main living and entertaining areas. Here we find a formal dining room, reception salon with Bechstein baby grand piano, a further sitting room and a conservatory/TV room, all with magnificent sea views. There is parquet flooring throughout and each room is most elegantly furnished and decorated with taste.

French doors lead to a small terrace with table and chairs and a sweeping staircase leading to the gardens. Also located on this floor are the fully fitted kitchen and ladies' and gentlemen's guest cloakrooms.

The house has several sets of staircases ingeniously leading to the bedrooms and lower floors. The ground floor level has a large snooker room and leads directly onto the gardens.

There are 7 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms with the four principal bedrooms having air conditioning. The grounds of the house descend toward the sea and are planted with specimen trees and fragrant flowers. There are many pathways for a gentle walk and shady places to sit and enjoy the sea view.

The pool is 13x6 metres and has a pool shower together with wide sun terraces and sun loungers.

There is a summer kitchen (see photos) with wood burning pizza oven and a large dining/entertaining terrace beneath a flower covered pergola. From the grounds there is a private and meandering path which leads directly to the sea. Guardien quarters.

Note: Furniture may be included in the sale.

Coco Chanel's Riviera villa goes on sale By Colin Randall in Paris

(Filed: 08/04/2006)

A villa on the French Riviera built by the Second Duke of Westminster for his lover, Coco Chanel, and later the setting for banquets attended by royalty, statesmen and film stars, has been put up for sale.

With its spectacular views of Monte Carlo and the Mediterranean, an acre-and-a-half of exotic gardens, pool, seven bedrooms and vast reception hall, La Pausa - as the house was known in its heyday - is expected by its present owner, a German businessman, to fetch around £7 million.

The villa was built by the Duke of Westminster for Coco Chanel

As La Pausa, built in the belle epoque style for which Roquebrune Cap Martin became renowned, the property was a favourite retreat of Sir Winston Churchill, a close friend of Emery and Wendy Reves, who bought it from Chanel in 1953.

The beautiful surroundings also fired Sir Winston's artistic imagination, inspiring his painting The View of Menton and Italy from La Pausa. It is now known as Villa Egerton, apparently the choice of subsequent British owners.

But it was during Chanel's ownership that the house enjoyed its early celebrity. The Duke chose the location while sailing the Riviera with the couturier in his yacht.

To please his mistress, the duke bought five acres just outside Roquebrune Cap Martin in 1927 and commissioned a young architect, Robert Streitz, to design the house.

Chanel made repeated trips from Paris to supervise the work, paying such attention to the detail of its interior design that she insisted on the installation of a replica of the stone staircase she remembered from the French orphanage where she grew up.

The affair between the duke and the couturier ended in 1930, but she kept the house. Aware of her enormous influence on the fashion world, the designer explained her decision to decline the offer of marriage to an English aristocrat by saying: "There are a lot of duchesses, but only one Coco Chanel."

Chanel lived at La Pausa during the Second World War, having closed down her Parisian fashion house when the German occupation began.

But after resuming her work in the post-war years she sold the house to Mr Reves, a writer, publisher and financier who also acted as Sir Winston's overseas literary agent.

Sir Winston had several prolonged stays there, becoming such a local fixture that the mayor of Roquebrune declared him an honorary citizen in 1956.

Among other guests who enjoyed the Reves's hospitality at La Pausa were Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, Anthony Eden, the Duke of Windsor, Konrad Adenauer, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace and Noel Coward.

Several rooms of the house were recreated at the Dallas Musum of Art in Mrs Reves's native Texas after her husband's death.

Sir Winston's painting is among Churchill memorabilia displayed in one of the rooms along with a first edition volume of his A History of the English Speaking Peoples, which he proof-read at La Pausa.

colin.randall@telegraph.co.uk

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