Les Colombieres

Les Colombieres, meaning the dovecote, is a villa in Menton on the French Riviera, originally built in 1790 and redesigned between 1918 and 1927 by the designer Ferdinand Bac, who reworked it as a Mediterranean garden estate. Bac laid out the 7.4 acre grounds with pavilions, colonnades, bridges, and classical literary allusions, and designed the interior frescoes and furniture drawing on his Mediterranean travels; the three story, roughly 800 square meter villa carries a distinctive red and yellow exterior. The estate hosted cultural figures including the artist Jean Cocteau and Marshal Joseph Joffre, and it has been protected as a French Monument Historique since 1991.