Villa Nellcote, 19th-century coastal villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

Villa Nellcote is a 16-room Belle Époque mansion on a headland above the sea at Villefranche-sur-Mer, fronted with marble Ionic columns. The house is not visible from the street; it can be seen from the water. Its wrought-iron gate carries gold-painted scrollwork, leaf motifs, a crest at the top centre, peacock-like birds above the lower panels, and two lantern-style lamps on posts flanking the central doors.

Eugene Thomas, a former banker, built the villa in 1899 on land bought from Nice olive-oil producer André Stable, naming it Château Amicitia. Samuel Lévi Goldenberg renamed it Nellcote in 1918 after his wife Nella. In 1919 Alexandre Bordes, a shipowner carrying sodium nitrate between Chile and France, acquired it.

The name Nellcôte is a contraction of "Nella's Cottage", coined in 1918 by owner Samuel Lévi Goldenberg after his wife Nella; the couple also used it as the affix of their French bulldog kennel. The villa became known through Keith Richards, who leased it from April 1971 and stayed with Anita Pallenberg and their son Marlon while the Rolling Stones recorded Exile on Main St. in the basement, photographed by Dominique Tarlé.

The property remains closed off from street access and is not open to visitors on foot. The best way to see the building is from a boat on the Mediterranean, where you can view its exterior and appreciate its setting above the water.

The villa's name comes from Nella's Cottage, coined in 1918 by owner Samuel Lévi Goldenberg after his wife Nella; the couple were also known breeders of French bulldogs. The basement vents said to bear swastikas are Belle Époque motifs, not Gestapo traces.