Our client asked us to rewatch the great Hitchcock film ‘To Catch a Thief’ with Grace Kelly. She wanted us to recreate the iconic drive along the winding hill roads of the French Riviera in an around St. Tropez. The garden she said called for the French Riviera and called for the dramatic interpretation of great film.  

 

The drama begins at the entrance gates where you are swept down a cobble stone driveway to an entry court with a massive wall fountain built into the hillside. Tall cypress hedges don’t grow in our climate, we used tightly clipped evergreen panels with contrasting greens to mirror the effect of the Riviera. During your drive down the hill, there are dramatic views to the Mediterranean blue quatrefoil pool set in the lawn below with grey cedars flanking each of the corners of the quatrefoil, and there are glimpses between the double row of hornbeams of the white marble mansion, a real life version of Le Petit Trianon, the folly of Queen Marie-Antoinette of France. The house sits 36 feet below the grade of the main road, a steep drive to the bottom of the hill where the house sits. 

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Dominating the view as you turn the bend in the steep hill driveway is an elegant tapis vert of green lawn off the limestone house which compliments a spectacular checkerboard terrace of cream and pink travertine marble squares wrapping the rear and side of the house. Entering the parking court, we cut hedges into the hillside above the massive stone wall fountain which dominates the courtyard.