Théoule-sur-Mer – red coves, a soap château and Cardin's bubbles

Théoule-sur-Mer sits on the foothills of the Esterel, on the western side of the bay of Cannes, 6 kilometres from Mandelieu-la-Napoule and 9 from the Croisette. Its coast runs for some 15 kilometres from the valley of Maurevieille to the Pointe du Trayas, cut into calanques, coves and headlands whose cliffs glow with red porphyry. The beaches are wilder and quieter than those of Cannes, and the town has stayed largely outside the summer crush.

Its 1,362 residents, the Théouliens, live between the sea and the slopes of the massif, with the Îles de Lérins a few nautical miles offshore.

From fishing port to commune

In antiquity Théoule was one of the most important ports between Toulon and Antibes, and from the fourth century the area depended on the monks of Lérins. Around 1630, during the Thirty Years' War, when the Spanish occupied the Lérins islands, a defensive tower was built here, and Gaspard de Villeneuve built a soap factory on the shore.

The railway along the coast opened in 1863, though Théoule only got its station in 1883. In 1888 the vast Maurevieille estate was divided into plots, many bought by families from Lyon who built villas. Abel Ballif, president of the Touring Club de France, had his villa Sainte-Luce here and drove the building of the Corniche d'Or. Until 1929 Théoule was part of Mandelieu; on 24 March that year the hamlets of Théoule, La Galère and La Figueirette became the commune of Théoule-sur-Mer.

The soap factory that became a castle

The crenellated Château de Théoule above the harbour began life as that 17th-century soap works. Auguste Ferrouillat turned it into a castle, and in 1913 it was sold to a Scottish aristocrat, Harry Crawford Leland de Langley, who completed the work. The Italian army made it its headquarters from November 1942; it was partly destroyed in the fighting of 1944 and sold in 1972 to the works council of the French electricity and gas industries.

Villas, aviators and Pierre Cardin

Théoule has always drawn the glamorous. In the 1920s the Château de la Galère received the aviators Jean Mermoz, Maryse Bastié, Hélène Boucher and Henri Guillaumet. In 1925 the architect Barry Dierks built the modernist Villa Le Trident on the Pointe de l'Esquillon. From 1967 Jacques Couëlle designed the private estate of La Galère, spread over 23 hectares.

After the war came Jean Sablon, Umberto II of Italy and Marie-José of Belgium, Martine Carol and Raf Vallone. Most famous of all was Pierre Cardin, who in 1991 bought the Maison Bulles, a house of curving bubbles designed by the Hungarian architect Antti Lovag, and created the Palais Bulles with its open-air theatre. Its rounded terracotta forms are now as much a symbol of Théoule as the red rocks.

Beaches, headlands and ports

The beaches are small and scattered: Le Maurin, Le Suveret, La Petite Fontaine near the town, and La Figueirette further west, by a calanque of red rock. The headlands, from the Pointe de l'Aiguille to the Pointe du Trayas, are the best viewpoints. Be warned that the coastal path is almost entirely private, open only in short stretches such as at La Petite Fontaine and Le Suveret. The commune has four marinas: La Rague, Le Suveret, Port-La Galère (private) and La Figueirette.

On the hillside above the Pointe de l'Esquillon, the Memorial of Notre-Dame d'Afrique, inaugurated in 2000 by repatriated French families from Algeria, holds a replica of the Black Virgin of Algiers and a sweeping view of the coast. And just east of the town, the Château de la Napoule marks the start of Mandelieu.

Neighbourhood and property data for Théoule-sur-Mer is on VERA PI, and more Riviera stories are on metromode.co.

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