Norman Foster's La Voile House on Cap-Ferrat Listed at €29.5 Million

Norman Foster's La Voile, a seven-storey glass-and-steel house the architect designed for his own family on the Cap-Ferrat peninsula, is for sale with a guide price of €29.5 million through Savills French Riviera.

Foster designed the house in the late 1990s and built it between 1999 and 2002. The property sits on a hillside above Cap-Ferrat, between Monaco and Nice, and cascades down to the rocky coastline with unobstructed Mediterranean views. It stands near the southernmost tip of the peninsula, a short distance from the Four Seasons Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat.

The house began life as a modest 1950s structure that had been expanded and upgraded on an ad-hoc basis as the peninsula grew in status. Foster first became aware of the site in the 90s while living in the French village of Grasse. After acquiring the original house, he stripped it back to its core and used the five-storey structure as a framework for new construction in glass and steel, extending the accommodation upward, downward and to the sides.

Strict planning rules prevented an all-new construction. The project became an exercise in renovation, carried out under the oversight of the French planning authorities.

The centerpiece is a double-height living space set behind a 7-metre-tall sloping wall of glass, shaded by giant steel brise-soleils. The glazed surface slides open to bring the outside in, with each pane weighing around 18 tonnes. The towering rear wall carries a vast mudwork mural by the artist Richard Long, commissioned for the house and created in situ.

A living area on the lowest level is overlooked by a dining room on the mezzanine, flanked by staircases leading to the upper floors, each with an internal balcony above the inner void. The house takes its name — "the sail" — from the canvas sails held aloft by two large steel arches that rise from the lowest level and over the upper floors to shade the house in summer.

Four bedrooms sit on the lowermost level. The swimming pool, parking, services and the main entrance occupy the uppermost level. Opaque glass walls shield the property from the roadway, giving little indication of the seven-storey structure beyond.

Lord and Lady Foster moved on a few years after completion. The house was then sold to the late CEO of Marimekko, Kirsti Paakkanen, and her estate is now selling the property.

The setting carries its own architectural weight. Eileen Gray's E-1027 villa and Le Corbusier's Cabanon sit a short distance down the coast, with Belle Époque villas interspersed among modernist outposts. La Voile's listing reinforces the Côte d'Azur's standing as a market where architect-designed houses command prices typically reserved for waterfront estates.