the Greek villa on the point
Villa Kérylos — ancient Greece, built on our bay.
On the point that closes Beaulieu’s Baie des Fourmis stands the strangest and most wonderful house on the Riviera: a complete, scholarly, no-expense-spared reconstruction of an ancient Greek nobleman’s villa, built between 1902 and 1908 and left to France with everything in place. We pass it by water almost every charter day. Here is why you should go in.
in the Kérylos spirit
A millionaire’s scholarship
Théodore Reinach — archaeologist, mathematician, politician, and heir to a banking fortune — wanted to know what living in the second century BC actually felt like, and had the means to find out. With architect Emmanuel Pontremoli he raised a villa of Delos around a peristyle courtyard: marbles, bronzes, mosaics laid by Italian craftsmen, furniture rebuilt from vase paintings, baths in the Greek manner — and then, being no fool, concealed pianos and plumbing behind the antiquity. He named it for the kérylos, the halcyon kingfisher the Greeks read as a bird of good omen when it skimmed the waves — and the omen held: on his death in 1928 he left the villa to the Institut de France with everything in place, his family summered here until 1967, and it has welcomed the curious ever since.
Visiting: the practical part
The villa is open daily most of the year (hours shift seasonally — check before a special trip), with an audio guide worth taking and a bookshop worth the exit. Give it ninety minutes; the mosaics and the courtyard want unhurried looking. It stands ten minutes’ level walk from the port along the seafront, which makes it the natural morning before an afternoon on the water — and its silhouette on the point is the last of Beaulieu you see as a charter clears the bay heading west.
shall we put a date in?
We reply within the day
Kérylos and Ephrussi: do both
The two great follies of this bay are family. Théodore’s wife, Fanny Kann, was born into the Ephrussi banking dynasty — a cousin of Maurice Ephrussi, whose wife was the Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild. Visiting her cousins at Kérylos while the marble was still going up, Béatrice fell for this stretch of coast and answered across the water with the rose-pink Villa Ephrussi and its nine themed gardens on the crest of Cap Ferrat. A combined ticket usually exists, and doing both in a day is one of the Riviera’s great pleasures — from the deck of a boat between them you can hold both houses in one glance, which is the way this coast was always meant to be appreciated: from the water, slightly incredulous.
Evenings at the villa
Kérylos is loveliest at the hour it was designed for. Through the summer season the villa opens into the evening — late openings run until ten, with moonlit “Selinofos” nights, concerts and open-air cinema in the programme — and the peristyle by lamplight is as close to the second century BC as the modern world gets. Lovelier still: the villa takes private evenings, with candlelit dinners laid in the Triklinos — the ancient dining hall — or cocktails in the gardens at sunset, arranged directly with the villa. Anchoring off the point beforehand as the façade catches the last light is, we would say, the correct overture.
The short answers
Yes — the villa hosts private evenings, from candlelit dinners in the Triklinos, its ancient Greek dining hall, to sunset cocktails in the gardens, booked directly with the villa. In summer the house also opens late into the evening for moonlit visits and concerts.
Ninety minutes does it justice; an hour at a brisk clip. Add the seafront walk from town and a coffee after and it is a perfect half-day paired with a beach or boat afternoon.
Beautifully — it stands white on its point at the mouth of the Baie des Fourmis, and our charters heading west pass close aboard. The sea view was the point: Reinach built where a Greek would have, on the water.
further down the chart
Your next summer story begins here.
One boat, one crew, up to 10 guests, and a coast that is entirely yours for the day. Tell us how you want to spend it and the rest is ours to arrange. The day is yours and it is our pleasure to be part of it.