Villa La Vigie, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

It was built by the British publisher Sir William Ingram, 1st Baronet in 1902 and occupied and renovated by the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in the 1980s.

[1] Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Dennis Thim described the house as a "wedding cake confection, which towers several hundred feet above the rock-strewn sand".

She described the interior in her diary entry of 20 February 1909 as having " ... got this villa quite nice at last with some gay chintz (which I love), mauve and pink wistaria, and instead of the horrible glaring chandeliers in the middle of the ceiling I have hired some shaded lamps".

[2][9] In March 1956 it was visited by Winston Churchill and the Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis with the chair of the SBM, Charles Simon.

[9] In 1986 the villa was sighted by fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld when he was having lunch at the Monte Carlo Country Club and he enquired into its ownership.

It was in a dilapidated condition having not been occupied for 40 years and Lagerfeld was told by Prince Rainier III of Monaco that if he restored it, he could be a tenant of the property for the rest of his life.

[2] Lagerfeld also rented a triplex apartment with a roof garden in Monaco and had a cabana at the Monte-Carlo Beach hotel that is located near the villa.

[2] Lagerfeld lived on the top floor of the villa with a canopied Marie Antoinette bed, a library, and two bathrooms – one with a view of the Mediterranean Sea in the morning, the other facing Monte Carlo at night.

[2] The house had two guest suites on the second floor and a separate apartment for Lagerfeld's companion Jacques de Bascher.