A quiet icon of high-tech architecture, La Voile sits on a hillside site above Cap-Ferrat, one of the most desirable spots along France’s Mediterranean coast. Conveniently located between Monaco and Nice, without the sprawl and bustle of either, it’s also a landscape with a long history of avant-garde artistic and architectural associations. Just a short distance down the coast is Eileen Gray’s E-1027 villa, adjoining Le Corbusier’s Cabanon, and classic Belle Époque villas are interspersed with spectacular modernist outposts.
La Voile seen from the coastal path
La Voile is one of the latter. Designed in the late 90s by Lord Norman Foster for his own use and constructed between 1999 and 2002, the new house began life as a modest 1950s structure that was expanded and upgraded on an ad-hoc basis as the peninsula grew in status and desirability.
Sited just a stone’s throw from the Four Seasons Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, the plot is near the southernmost tip of the peninsula. It cascades down the hill to the rocky coastline, with unencumbered Mediterranean views.
The house overlooks the Mediterranean
Foster first became aware of the site in the 90s when he lived in the French village of Grasse. Having acquired the original house, Foster stripped it right back to its core, using the five-storey structure as a framework for a new construction of glass and steel that drinks in the sea views, whilst also extending the accommodation up, down and to the sides.
Strict planning rules prevented an all-new construction, so the project was a masterful exercise in renovation, all done by the book under the watchful eye of the exacting French planning authorities.
The mezzanine level in the great central living space
The main focal point of the house is the spectacular double-height living space, set behind a 7m-tall sloping wall of glass that in turn is shaded by giant steel brise-soleils. This glazed surface slides open to bring the outside in, with each pane weighing in at around 18 tonnes. The towering rear wall is adorned with a vast mudwork mural by the artist Richard Long, commissioned for the house and created in situ.
The Richard Long installation can be seen at right
A living area on the lowest level is overlooked by a dining room on the mezzanine, flanked by staircases that lead to the upper levels, each with an internal balcony above the inner void. The house’s name, ‘the sail’, comes from the canvas sails held aloft by two large steel arches that rise up from the lowest level and rise up and over the upper floors to shade the house in the summer months.
A bedroom on the lower level
Four bedrooms are housed in the lowermost level, while the swimming pool is at the uppermost level swimming pool, along with discrete parking, services and the main entrance. Opaque glass walls shield the property from the roadway, giving little indication that a seven-storey structure lies beyond.
The main living space at La Voile
After Lord and Lady Foster moved on a few years after completion, the house was sold to the late CEO of Marimekko, Kirsti Paakkanen, and the house is now being sold by her estate.
La Voile, Cap-Ferrat by Norman Foster
La Voile, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, guide price €29.5m, Riviera.Savills.fr, @SavillsFrenchRiviera