Villa Kérylos

Villa Kérylos is the Riviera's most unusual house and the perfect partner to Villa Ephrussi across the bay. In the first years of the twentieth century the archaeologist and Hellenist Théodore Reinach decided to live as an ancient Greek of good family would have lived, and with the architect Emmanuel Pontremoli he built exactly that on the Pointe des Fourmis at Beaulieu-sur-Mer: a house modelled on the aristocratic villas excavated on the island of Delos, with a central peristyle courtyard, rooms opening off it in the Greek manner, walls of Carrara marble and Italian alabaster, floors of mosaic, and painted friezes copied or adapted from vases and frescoes. Everything was designed to match, down to the furniture in wood inlaid with ivory and bronze, the lamps, the textiles and the crockery, so that the house feels less like a museum of antiques than a stage set built by someone who genuinely believed in it. It also had electricity, central heating and modern plumbing hidden behind the antique surfaces, which is part of its charm. Reinach left the villa to the Institut de France, and it opens to visitors every day of the year except a handful of public holidays, with an audio guide in several languages included in the ticket. The setting is half the pleasure: the house sits almost in the sea, and from its loggias and terraces you look across the water to Cap Ferrat and along the coast toward Eze and Monaco. A visit takes about an hour, unhurried, and combined tickets with Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild or with the Trophée d'Auguste at La Turbie reduce the cost of doing two great houses in one trip.

What to look for: start in the peristyle, the open courtyard with its columns and mosaics, which is the heart of the Greek plan. The men's rooms, the library with its scholarly inscriptions, the dining room furnished with couches for reclining at meals, and the bath room with its marble basin show how far Reinach pushed the idea. Upstairs, the bedrooms are calmer and more domestic, and the views over the sea from the windows are among the finest in Beaulieu. On the lower level, a gallery of plaster casts of famous Greek sculptures gives the visit a final museum note. The audio guide is worth using, because it explains the sources for each decorative scheme and the family life that went on here.

Practical details: the villa is open daily from 10am, closing at 5pm from September to April and at 6pm from May to August, with last entry half an hour before closing. It closes on 1 January, 1 May, 1 and 11 November and 25 December. Under-18s enter free, as do young EU residents under 26, and admission is free for everyone on the first Sunday of certain winter months. There is no café on site, so plan a coffee in Beaulieu. The garden is small but planted with Mediterranean species that the Greeks would have known: olive, pomegranate, myrtle and oleander.

Getting there and combining: Beaulieu-sur-Mer station is a short walk away, on the coastal line between Nice and Monaco, and buses run along the lower corniche. Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild is on the hill directly opposite, and the combined ticket is valid for several days, so you can do one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, or split them across your trip. The coastal promenade from Beaulieu around to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat starts nearby. Kérylos suits art and history lovers, couples and older children who enjoy the idea of a real house built like a myth; it is quieter than Ephrussi and rarely crowded.