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The guide · Walk 4 of 5 · easy

The southern tip

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

5gates
1.5 kmstraight-line between gates – the road is a little longer
27 minat 4.5 km/h, a minute and a half at each gate
Avenue Mrs L. D. Beaumontstart
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Cap d’Antibes · VERA’s own boundary5 stops · dots: the other walks
  1. 1
    Start · Avenue Mrs L. D. Beaumont · built 1865–1867

    Villa Eilenrocopenparcel confirmed

    Avenue Mrs L. D. Beaumont · City of Antibes — gardens open

    You can go in. Four Ionic colonnades face the sea at the top of a wide staircase. Built in 1867 as a gift from a Scot to his second wife; given to the city of Antibes in 1983 on condition the people of Antibes could use it.

    What the record saysTwo auctions bracket its history. In 1873 the founder sold it in a hurry at a tenth of its price; decades later it was guided at five million francs and went for seventeen.
    Directions Photograph the gate
    Villa Eilenroc, VERA field photograph 1Villa Eilenroc, VERA field photograph 2Villa Eilenroc, VERA field photograph 3Villa Eilenroc, VERA field photograph 4Villa Eilenroc, VERA field photograph 5Villa Eilenroc, VERA field photograph 6
  2. 2
    +296 m · 296 m in · built 1865

    Villa Hierparcel confirmed

    Avenue Mrs L. D. Beaumont · Private

    An entrance porch added in 1951 by Barry Dierks. The house behind is not the one built here in 1865 for a widow and her seven children — that one was taken apart in 1923.

    What the record saysThe house standing here is not the one built in 1865 for a widow and her seven children. A later owner took that one apart in 1923.
    Directions Photograph the gate
    Villa Hier, VERA field photograph 1
  3. 3
    +194 m · 491 m in · built end of the 1870s

    Medy Rocparcel confirmed

    Boulevard J.F. Kennedy · Private

    Built at the end of the 1870s as Villa Les Colonnes, for the columns. Nineteen hectares. In 1927 the owner's son-in-law lost the family fortune at the Juan-les-Pins casino, travelling there by boat to save time.

    What the record saysAlmost every owner enlarged it, and two wings were added. The estate needed a driver, a maître d'hôtel, chambermaids, a seamstress, a lady companion, cooks and gardeners.
    Directions Photograph the gate
    Medy Roc, VERA field photograph 1Medy Roc, VERA field photograph 2Medy Roc, VERA field photograph 3Medy Roc, VERA field photograph 4Medy Roc, VERA field photograph 5Medy Roc, VERA field photograph 6
  4. 4
    +255 m · 745 m in · built 1864–1924

    Château des Enfantsopenparcel confirmed

    Boulevard J.F. Kennedy · Hotel since 1955

    A gate with a story. Leopold II of Belgium, walking back from the Grand Hôtel, found this gate open and let himself in. It was locked after that, so he climbed the wall. He bought the place in 1904 through his doctor.

    What the record saysFifty-nine years passed between the first stone and the last. The founder died of a heart attack in 1865 and is buried on the rocks below; the thirty villas he meant to sell were never built.
    Directions Photograph the gate
    Château des Enfants, VERA field photograph 1Château des Enfants, VERA field photograph 2Château des Enfants, VERA field photograph 3
  5. 5
    +740 m · 1.5 km in · built 1893

    Villa Les Rochers Juanopenparcel confirmed

    Chemin de la Mosquée · Public shoreline

    There is no gate. The Moorish villa that stood on this rock was demolished in 1929 — but the lane you walked in on is still called Chemin de la Mosquée, after its nickname. Five hectares here cost 2,500 francs in 1893.

    What the record saysThe man who bought this rock died three months later, aged 44, without ever seeing the house. He had left a thousand square metres of it to a stranger, and his heirs fought the bequest and won.
    Directions Photograph the gate

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 Duby Dubeau, the first gate on the walk
moderateWalk 3

The east shore to La Croë

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

5 gates2.9 km47 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