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The guide · Walk 3 of 5 · moderate

The east shore to La Croë

Where the estates get large and the walls get high. The longest of the five.

5gates
2.9 kmstraight-line between gates – the road is a little longer
47 minat 4.5 km/h, a minute and a half at each gate
Boulevard de Baconstart
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Cap d’Antibes · VERA’s own boundary5 stops · dots: the other walks
  1. 1
    Start · Boulevard de Bacon · built 1948–1951

    Villa Duby Dubeauparcel confirmed

    Boulevard de Bacon · Private

    Built 1948–51 by Barry Dierks and another hand, California-modern and startling for its date. A newspaper put the cost at twenty million francs. There is a heart-shaped pool behind the wall.

    What the record saysA newspaper of 24 August 1951 ran the build cost as a scandal. When the owner died in 1980 there was nothing left of the fortune, and his son inherited only the name.
    Directions Photograph the gate
    Villa Duby Dubeau, VERA field photograph 1Villa Duby Dubeau, VERA field photograph 2Villa Duby Dubeau, VERA field photograph 3Villa Duby Dubeau, VERA field photograph 4Villa Duby Dubeau, VERA field photograph 5Villa Duby Dubeau, VERA field photograph 6
  2. 2
    +830 m · 830 m in · built after 1882

    Villa Jane Andréeparcel confirmed

    Boulevard du Cap · Private

    Bought in 1929 by the Aga Khan as a wedding present and renamed after his bride. Stables, a tack room, a kennel, an aviary and a dovecote were built with the house.

    What the record saysIt was bought in 1923 by a Grand Duchess purely as an investment, sold again within a few years, and only then became a wedding present.
    Directions Photograph the gate
  3. 3
    +1 km · 1.9 km in · built 1920s

    Villa Les Liseronsparcel confirmed

    Avenue de la Tour Gandolphe · Private

    The exiled royal family of Montenegro settled on this street. The King died in the house in 1921 and the Queen in 1923; a third sister is said to lie in an Orthodox chapel on one of these plots.

    What the record saysA set of drawings and plans for the villa survives, dated 1928 — three years after the king who died here was buried, and one year after the last of his daughters.
    Directions Photograph the gate
  4. 4
    +527 m · 2.4 km in · built 1907

    Château de la Garoupeparcel confirmed

    Chemin des Contrebandiers · Private estate

    Nineteen hectares bought for 540,000 francs in 1905. In 1931 the estate employed seventeen people — five of them gardeners. A second villa was built inside the park in 1910.

    What the record saysThe estate was let, not sold, for most of its life. The Pulitzers took it for the season of 1921. Its most recent owner was arrested and the château seized.
    Directions Photograph the gate
    Château de la Garoupe, VERA field photograph 1Château de la Garoupe, VERA field photograph 2
  5. 5
    +545 m · 2.9 km in · built 1873, rebuilt 1928–1931

    Château de La Croëparcel confirmed

    Chemin de la Croë · Private estate

    Rented from 1938 by the former Edward VIII for six hundred thousand francs a year. Two kings tried to buy it afterwards and neither could raise the money. It burnt in 1980 and was rebuilt from 2005.

    What the record saysBetween 1905 and 1928 it changed hands so often that the book records no names and no prices at all for those twenty-three years. It later sat empty for years as a shipowner's archive.
    Directions Photograph the gate
    Château de La Croë, VERA field photograph 1Château de La Croë, VERA field photograph 2Château de La Croë, VERA field photograph 3Château de La Croë, VERA field photograph 4Château de La Croë, VERA field photograph 5Château de La Croë, VERA field photograph 6

Next

The other four walks.

Le 1932, the first gate on the walk
easyWalk 1

Juan-les-Pins waterfront

Six gates in four hundred metres — and the invention of the summer season on the Riviera.

6 gates312 m13 min
Château Empel, the first gate on the walk
easyWalk 2

La Salis and Bacon

The oldest private holdings on the Cap, and the three finest gates on the peninsula.

8 gates1.3 km29 min
Villa Eilenroc, the first gate on the walk
easyWalk 4

The southern tip

The grandest ground on the Cap, one gate you can walk through, and one villa that no longer exists.

5 gates1.5 km27 min
Villa Soleil, later the Grand Hôtel du Cap, the first gate on the walk
moderateWalk 5

The west shore, back to town

Two hotels, a botanist's garden, and a comic singer's face on a gatepost.

9 gates2.5 km47 min