Villa Zelda, formerly the ballroom at the starry 1927-opened Hôtel Provençal which hosted the beau monde of the 20th Century has launched to market, delivering the next super-prime iteration in the legendary Cap d’Antibes hotel’s glossy redevelopment story.
The 6,458 square foot, €27.25 million (US $31.25 million) residence enters with swagger into the Cote d’Azur trophy home market, as an offer of concentrated ultra-prime living replete with heavyweight Riviera heritage.
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Naturally, Villa Zelda is everything you can expect from a project that’s felt the midas touch of billionaire property developer John Caudwell, who’s invested inordinate sums of money restoring the famous Art Deco icon, Hôtel Provençal.
A home for the modern-era enfants terribles
Villa Zelda’s has exceptionally good bone structure and even better DNA. The one-of-one, two-storey residence has been carved from the husk of Hôtel Provençal’s former double-height ballroom, one that doubled as a restaurant where chatelaine Florence Gould would throw high-society balls, swing jazz soirées, and other legendary socials.
Buyers will inherit the coveted space once patronised by the iconic enfants terribles of high society, including Picasso, Hemingway, Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Ella Fitzgerald and Coco Chanel, who dined in the rotunda when she visited the hotel in 1931.
While the revelleries of bygone era and those that coloured it have grown still, quieter ultra-luxury endures with incoming buyers inheriting one of Le Provençal finest spaces and arguably one of the best homes on a glamorous coastline flecked with some of the most expensive super-price real estate in the world.
“Buyers will inherit the coveted space once patronised by the iconic enfants terribles of high society, including Picasso, Hemingway, Marilyn Monroe, Ella Fitzgerald and Coco Chanel”
Reflecting the site’s rich literary and cultural heritage, Villa Zelda is named after American writer, socialite and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald who holidayed at Le Provençal – a stop on a summer circuit European pilgrimage.
Ten years in the making, the residence sits across two floors and 6,805 square feet of private terraces and landscaped gardens including a 30ft (9m) long private swimming pool.
Internally, there are five ensuite bedrooms and a Golden Age, Hollywood-style cinema alongside numerous guest powder rooms and wine cellar. The residence also has its own private lift and staff entrance as well as extensive back-of-house facilities.
A historic Riviera address reborn
Time honoured Art Deco elements and nods to Villa Zelda’s pedigree were overseen by Parisian architecture and interior design house Affine Design, heavyweights behind the renovation of historic hotels such as the Hôtel de Crillon, Hôtel de Paris and Hôtel Shangri-La Paris.
The residence is accessed via an Art Deco style grand entrance hall with sleek curved walls and Deco columns which roll out the red carpet for the ultimate historical reference point – the curved staircase into the double-height rotunda now provides a spectacular grand reception room offering entertainment on a grand scale.
Here, you’ll be dining or hosting an exquisite soirées where some of the greatest names in modern history once stood, revelled and dreamed up iconic works of fiction, art or fashion.
Commenting on Villa Zelda’s launch, John Caudwell, whose business mission is to deliver the “best residences in the world” said the residence is “one of the most important marquee residences to be unveiled at Le Provençal.”
“Villa Zelda provides a discerning buyer with a totally unique opportunity to acquire an iconic piece of Riviera history that has been transformed by Caudwell into one of the finest trophy residences on the Côte d’Azur,” he added.
The Grande Dame, ready for her close up again
Hôtel Provençal in Antibes was built in the late 1920s by architect Lucien Stable for American millionaire Frank Jay Gould and his wife Florence.
For more than five decades, Hôtel Provençal, occupying a privileged spot between billionaire playground Cap d’Antibes and Juan-les-Pins, stood as the 1920s social engine room of the French Riviera.
But after the hotel closed for renovation in 1977, it never reopened. It lay dormant until it was acquired by Caudwell, the property development firm of British billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist John Caudwell, in 2014.
Caudwell’s passion project would take over 10 years of meticulous planning and construction but in 2025, light poured in once more through boarded-up windows.
“Caudwell’s passion project would take over 10 years of meticulous planning and construction but in 2025, light poured in once more through boarded-up windows”
His endeavor has seen the hotel restored to its full Art Deco glory and 256,000 square feet (23,800 square metres) of new super-prime supply – some of the most talked about in the world – put to market.
Carved into 34 turnkey super-prime private residences borrowed from former ballrooms, bars and foyers, Le Provençal 2.0 now spans lateral apartments, penthouses and villas.
It’s the largest and only newly-built residential estate on the Cap d’Antibes at the centre of which sits the main six-bedroom villa La Belle Étoile with private cinema, two guesthouses and staff apartments.
Other residences released for sale at Le Provençal include apartments priced from €4.05 million ($4.76 million) up to €8 million ($9.4million), with marquee residences priced from €15 million ($17.6 million).
Investor notes
Villa Zelda occupies one of the most historically significant spaces at Le Provençal. Its unreplicable historical pedigree combined with high water marks of extreme luxury and unrivalled location puts the residence in the running for the crown of the best property on the Riviera.
Particularly appealing to those who like their super-prime homes to be loaded with a hefty dose of cultural heavyweight, the cachet of owning an unreplicable world-class product both on Cap d’Antibes and at brand Le Provençal is a driving factor behind the “extremely high” interest from the world’s ultra-high-net-worth.
Significant interest is coming from Middle East and Asian buyers whose fortunes reach into the billions, but a slice of history missing from inventories.
