Nellcote

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Villa Nellcôte is a 19th century sixteen-room mansion on the waterfront of Villefranche-sur-Mer in the Côte d'Azur region of southern France. Nellcôte was leased for during the summer of 1971 by Keith Richards, guitarist for The Rolling Stones for recording sessions of Exile on Main Street.

[edit] History

In the late 1890s, a former banker, Eugene Thomas, built the imposing villa whose frontage was decorated with ionic columns made out of marble. At the outset, the villa bore the name of "Amicitia Castle". In 1919, the villa, since baptized "Nellcôte", was acquired by the Bordes family, famous ship-owners specializing in the transport of soda nitrate between Chile and France. Adding infamy to the residence's history, Nellcôte served as the headquarters of the local Gestapo during the Nazi occupation of France in the early 1940s, with the floor vents in the basement of the villa reportedly being decorated with swastikas.