Propriété Santo Sospir, Decorated villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.

Propriété Santo Sospir is a Mediterranean-style villa built between 1931 and 1935 at 14 avenue Jean-Cocteau in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Its white exterior wall is covered by a diagonal lattice of brown wooden slats forming diamond openings; a rectangular wooden doorway holds a sliding panel of woven tan bamboo, and a black-and-white mosaic face is set into the floor below it.

Built between 1931 and 1935 in a regional Mediterranean style, the villa was furnished with pieces bought from Madeleine Castaing. Francine Weisweiller met Jean Cocteau during the filming of Les Enfants terribles, and in 1950 she invited him and his adopted son Édouard Dermit to stay. Cocteau asked to draw an Apollo head above the salon fireplace, beginning the wall decoration. He returned until his death in 1963.

Cocteau's wall decoration began in 1950 with a head of Apollo above the salon fireplace, drawn at his own request during a stay with Édouard Dermit. He went on to cover the walls, a process he described in his 1952 short film La Villa Santo Sospir. The villa appears in his 1960 film Le Testament d'Orphée.

The property sits on Avenue Jean-Cocteau and requires advance booking to visit since it operates as a protected historical monument with strict preservation rules. Arrange your visit slot ahead of time to ensure access to the interior.

Cocteau filmed his 35-minute amateur film La Villa Santo-Sospir there in 1952, documenting the wall decoration he had begun two years earlier. The villa also appears in his 1960 film Le Testament d'Orphée and in Edgardo Cozarinsky's 1983 documentary Jean Cocteau, autoportrait d'un inconnu.