The Hitchcock connect

The Chateau de la Croix des Gardes, a luxurious hilltop estate in Cannes, that was featured in the 1955 film, ‘To Catch a Thief,’ is publicly on the market for the first time in 56 years. Andrew Allen takes a look inside the home to discover what makes it so unique.


Few films capture the elegant spirit of the French Riviera as well as Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. The film’s stars, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, were at their charismatic best and a series of glamorous locations provide a celebrated visual backdrop. One of the most important of these was the Chateau de la Croix des Gardes, in Cannes, which was called the Sandford Villa in the film. The chateau doesn’t so much occupy an address in Cannes, as a good part of an entire neighbourhood to the east of the resort.

It sits at the summit of the leafy Croix des Gardes hill, with 360-degree panoramic views over Cannes itself, the Lérins Islands and the Mediterranean. Looking inland gives views over the mountains of Grasse and, from the highest bedrooms, the snow-capped Alps. The 3-storey house is now publicly on the market for the first time in 56 years with Sotheby’s International Realty, which is looking for offers in the range of 50 to 100 million euros or $57 million to $113 million.

Just 2 miles from the Boulevard de la Croisette, Cannes’s emblematic seafront promenade, the chateau is reached by a stiff climb. Access is via a driveway that winds its way through 25 acres of formal French gardens planted with numerous sculpted cypress and eucalyptus trees as well as cactus, lavender, mimosa, laurel and dwarf palms. The house itself, with its Florentine facade, pale ocher stucco finish and shuttered French windows, has a Belle Époque feel. Stepping inside one is greeted by an
expansive marble staircase.The Croix des Gardes hill derives its name from the cross (croix), still standing on the hill, which marks the spot where the lookouts (gardes) used to keep watch.

Inside the place
But for a long time, it was known as the English hill, having become popular in the early 19th century when wealthy Britons, most prominently the slave-trade abolitionist Lord Brougham, began to construct luxurious villas on and around the hill. “Most of these beautiful Belle Époque properties have been split up and turned into apartments or are now municipal buildings,” said Laurence Chaleil, chief executive of Sotheby’s International Realty in the Côte d’Azur. “This is one of very few that is still available in its entirety.”

A Swiss industrialist, Paul Girod, built the chateau, which has a surface area of 1,200 square metres, or nearly 13,000 square feet in 1919, but in 1960 it was bought by Gustave Leven, of Perrier fame. In the late 1940s, Gustave purchased a semi-
abandoned spring in southern France and over the following decades turned Perrier into the world’s largest brand of bottled mineral water. Gustave died in 2008, and the house is currently owned by a group of investors who prefer not to be identified.

On the ground floor, with its marble flooring, there is a library and a reading room with sea views and French doors. Adjoining the library is a winter garden filled with hothouse plants and a floor-to-ceiling waterfall made out of volcanic rock. A drawing room leads to a summer terrace and gazebo for summer dining. The drawing room walls are painted with murals of notable works of architecture and monuments. Laurence said she believed the murals were created when the house was purchased by Gustave and was extended by the British architect Alan Gore.

Around that time the garden was redesigned and an infinity pool was created by Alan and André Svetchine, a French architect of Russian origin who designed some of the Côte d’Azur’s most iconic properties. A Turkish lodge stands next to the pool and the grounds also contain fruit orchards and a gatehouse. On the second floor, there is an office with a brown marble fireplace and what Laurence describes as “male” and “female” master bedrooms. While the male bedroom has parquet flooring, the female one is carpeted and
features extensive cedar closets. There are 6 main bedrooms in the 3-storey property, 4 of which are en-suite, as well as staff quarters.

Local legend has it that the house caught the eye of Alfred Hitchcock when it became the setting for one of the first great parties to mark the Cannes film festival. Publicity materials for the house say it served as the location of the 1955 film’s climactic masquerade ball scene in To Catch a Thief. Alain Kerzoncuf and Nándor Bokor, Hitchcock enthusiasts who visited the area to research the exact locations used in the film for the website The Hitchcock Zone, came to a slightly different conclusion, however.

They say that the masquerade ball scene, while apparently set at the ‘Sandford Villa,’ was entirely filmed at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. But the scene in which Cary Grant and Grace Kelly stroll in the Sandford Villa’s luxurious gardens, sexual tension crackling between them, was indeed filmed at the property, they assert. Exterior shots feature another unknown house. A close viewing of the film after visiting the house indicates Alain and Nándor’s view would seem to be the correct one. Later on, the chateau reportedly was featured in Alain Resnais’s surrealist film Last Year at Marienbad.

Prestigious address
The house is now empty as its furniture was sold in a Sotheby’s auction in October. The kitchen and some other parts of the main house require restoration. “There’s a lot of wasted space in this property, so it would be great for someone who wanted to renovate it,” Laurence said. “You can see it’s an old design because the staircase is so
spacious. In a contemporary design it would be much smaller.”

While a prestigious address, Croix des Gardes is less expensive per square metre than in Californie, a residential area to the west of Cannes. Nearby Cap Ferrat and Cap d’Antibes also command significantly higher prices per square metre. But Laurence says direct sea views are harder to come across in those areas as the ownerstend to prefer discretion and many houses are hidden behind rows of trees to prevent their being photographed from the sea.

Cannes Airport, which is used almost exclusively by private jets and which the house overlooks, is a 15-minute drive away. The Nice airport is a 30-minute drive. And that most emblematic of Cannes landmarks, the Palais des Festivals, where every spring Hollywood A-listers are photographed on the famous red carpet? It is just a brisk 40-minute walk away, though the return walk to the chateau, which stands 213 metres, or almost 700 feet, above sea level, may take a little longer.