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On one of the most exclusive stretches of the French Riviera sits Domaine de la Belle Étoile — a newly built estate that is, remarkably, the only ground-up residential property to be constructed on Cap d’Antibes in recent memory. Developed by British billionaire John Caudwell, the 3.65-acre compound blends old Riviera glamour with contemporary design, and has been offered for sale at a price hovering around €58.95 million (roughly $69 million), with some listings citing figures as high as €70 million depending on currency conversion and timing.
The estate has drawn significant attention from the international property press since its unveiling, not only for its price tag but for what it represents: the first genuinely new residential compound to rise on a stretch of coastline where available land is virtually nonexistent, and most “new” listings are simply renovations of villas passed between generations of owners.
From Tennis Club to Trophy Estate
The site’s story predates the current estate by a century. It once formed part of the grounds of the Hôtel Provençal, an Art Deco retreat whose 1920s heyday drew guests including Marilyn Monroe, Coco Chanel, the Duke of Windsor, and John F. Kennedy. Actress Bette Davis and her husband, actor Gary Merrill, were also known to spend family time there in the 1950s. For decades, the hotel was one of the quiet fixtures of Cap d’Antibes society — less flamboyant than some of its neighbors, but no less storied.
Caudwell acquired the hotel in 2014, as part of a package deal that included the adjacent land now occupied by Domaine de la Belle Étoile. The Hôtel Provençal itself is being transformed separately into Le Provençal, a 39-residence development with a combined list price of roughly €300 million, expected to complete in early 2026. That project features soaring ceilings, the large porthole-style windows characteristic of Cap d’Antibes architecture, and an extensive spa finished in Italian marble — a companion piece, of sorts, to the residential estate next door, and evidence of just how large a footprint Caudwell has staked out in this one corner of the Riviera.
One structure on the new estate carries that history forward directly: Villa Céleste, the smaller of two guesthouses, was originally built as the tennis clubhouse for the Hôtel Provençal. Rather than demolish it, Caudwell’s team restored and refurbished the building, preserving its soaring 14-foot vaulted ceilings and original beams while updating the interiors with golden wallpapers and vintage-meets-modern furniture — a deliberate link between the estate’s storied past and its new life, and by most accounts the single most photographed room on the property.
Three Villas, One Estate
Domaine de la Belle Étoile was three years in the making and now comprises three structures across roughly 14,200 to 16,000 square feet of combined living space, depending on configuration:
- Villa La Belle Étoile: the contemporary main residence, a two-story, six-bedroom villa designed by Nice-based architecture firm Atelier Baraness + Cawker, with interiors by Monaco design studio Casamanara. It includes a principal suite of roughly 100 square meters, along with a gym, sauna, and spa.
- Villa Céleste: the restored former tennis clubhouse, now a two-bedroom guesthouse with vaulted ceilings, restored beams, and an open-plan living and dining area finished with vintage-inspired interiors.
- Villa Capella: a smaller, one-bedroom guesthouse rounding out the compound. A further cottage, Villa Marguerite, sits adjacent and remains under construction, available separately.
Interiors throughout were designed by Casamanara, whose founders have described the goal as creating “a private heaven” where intimate spaces feel as considered as the grand reception rooms — with a material and color palette drawn from the Riviera’s sky and sea, rather than leaning on recognizable luxury branding. That philosophy shows up in tactile choices throughout the main villa: a grand entrance paved in blue enamelled lava stone and creamy limestone, sliding glass walls that dissolve the boundary between the main reception room and the terrace beyond, and bedroom suites treated with the same care as the more obviously showpiece spaces. The result, according to the design team, is meant to feel less like a display of wealth and more like a genuinely lived-in retreat — albeit one with a nine-figure price tag.
Grounds Built for Riviera Living
The estate’s 3.65 acres are as much a part of the sales pitch as the villas themselves. The grounds include rose gardens, emerald lawns, towering cypress trees, a small olive grove, and even a micro-vineyard, all overlooking Port de l’Olivette and, beyond it, the open Mediterranean. The scent of rose, lavender, and jasmine is frequently cited by those who have toured the property as one of its most memorable features — a sensory signature as distinctive as any single room. At the property’s center sits a glass-edged, roughly 23-meter swimming pool that appears to merge visually with the sea beyond the hedge line, framed by the olive grove behind it.
Practical amenities are folded into the landscaping as well: parking for up to 16 cars, and space allowed — subject to the relevant permits — for a future helipad and a tennis or basketball court, giving a future owner room to further customize the grounds without disturbing the estate’s core structures. The terrain itself is notably flat for the area, which is part of what makes those future additions feasible in a way they wouldn’t be on the area’s more typically steep, terraced hillside plots.
Location is central to the estate’s appeal. Domaine de la Belle Étoile sits between two of the Riviera’s most storied hotels, the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc and the Belles Rives, on a peninsula nicknamed “Billionaire’s Bay” for the cluster of superyachts that regularly anchor offshore. From here, Cannes, Monaco, and Saint-Tropez are all within easy reach, placing the estate at the geographic center of the Riviera’s high season social calendar rather than on its outskirts.
A Billionaire’s Riviera Footprint
John Caudwell, who built his fortune in mobile phone retail before turning to property development, has become an increasingly prominent figure on Cap d’Antibes — a peninsula already among the most tightly held pieces of real estate in Europe. Beyond Domaine de la Belle Étoile and the Le Provençal residences, Caudwell is known in Riviera circles for his own superyacht, and has personally hosted journalists at the estate to showcase the project, a level of hands-on involvement unusual among developers working at this scale.
That personal involvement is often cited by Caudwell’s team as central to the project’s identity: rather than treating Domaine de la Belle Étoile as a speculative build to be sold off in pieces, the estate was conceived and marketed as a single, cohesive turn-key residence — Lars Christiaanse, the group’s director of sales, has described it as “the ultimate turn-key Riviera home on the Cap d’Antibes,” a property meant to be moved into rather than renovated.
A Statement Property
Marketed by Caudwell alongside Côte d’Azur Sotheby’s International Realty, Domaine de la Belle Étoile is being positioned not simply as a large house, but as a legacy property — the only newly built residential estate on Cap d’Antibes, on a plot that few developers could hope to secure today. Between its A-list history, its scale, and its position on one of the world’s most exclusive stretches of coastline, it’s easy to see why the estate has drawn comparisons to a modern-day Slim Aarons photograph: old Riviera glamour, rebuilt for a new generation of owners. Whether it ultimately sells at its full asking price or settles somewhere below it, the estate has already achieved something rarer than a high price tag — a genuinely new address on a coastline where almost nothing new gets built at all.
