Well built
When the huge residence was built in 1902 in Villefranche-sur-Mer (Alpes-Maritimes), the Riviera saw the beginnings of sea bathing tourism. Louis Eugène Thomas, a wealthy businessman from Hérault, l had also built to receive his Russian aristocratic friends who appreciated the Côte d’Azur more and more. It was quite natural, then, that it should come back to them a century later. It was Victor Rashnikov, one of the largest steel producers in the world, who bought it for 83 million euros in 2007, as well as the smaller adjacent property. Bodyguards all dressed in black are now stationed in front of the gate, the same one once rusted and left open night and day by the Rolling Stones.
Belatedly spotted
Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has announced that it wants to freeze the property and assets owned by Russian oligarchs in France in order to put pressure on those close to Vladimir Putin.
By a clever arrangement of SCI, the new owner of the Nellcote villa hoped to escape the hunt of this ultra-rich elite. Thus, the villa does not appear on the first list, published in mid-March, of chalets, yachts and huge properties identified and access to which is now blocked to their owners by the ministry. But the Bercy task force is strengthening over the weeks, and the residence will be listed on April 13.
Fabulously decrepit
In the spring of 1971, the Stones are adrift, pursued by the British tax authorities. The rock band’s income is taxed at 83% and the English are looking for a place to hide for a while. They take refuge on a promontory in the harbor of Villefranche, just next to the peninsula of the billionaires of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. An 800 square meter neoclassical mansion facing the sea.
The villa, which for a long time belonged to a survivor of the titanic, Nella Goldenberg, is a little abandoned. It is no less fabulous, with its marble fireplaces, its monumental chandeliers. The summer of 1971 will leave festive memories; the Marseillais rub shoulders with the jet-set, endless jams are improvised…
musically refreshed
Thanks to the Mediterranean climate and the endless parties, the Stones seem to be finally recovering from the death of ex-guitarist Brian Jones, the filth of their American manager, the tensions and the hunt for the taxman. The mythical summer will give birth to the double 33-lap Exile on Main St., considered by many fans as their best album, the most “Stones” of the “Stones”, with this very particular sound, recorded in the cellar by clever technicians who had to plug into the current of the railway tracks. And then there is that night in the summer of 1971 when the group’s photographer, Dominique Tarlé, threw into the sea a trunk decorated with a swastika found in the basement of the villa: during the Second World War, the zone was reserved for the military.