MAISON DE STARS Philippe Bouvard sold his 442 m² villa in Cannes, a property with a very special swimming pool

Philippe Bouvard, who celebrates his 94th birthday this Wednesday, December 6, is known for having been the host of the famous show The Big Heads, today presented by Laurent Ruquier. His love for the Côte d’Azur is also no secret. A region that he admires, so much so that he bought “land in Tanneron, in the Var“. This is what he told the Figaro in 2009. Problem: he had been lied to about the “surface” of the one.

After seven years of proceedings, the sale broke down and the presenter then retreated to Valbonne, a few kilometers from Cannes. He stayed there for around fifteen years, before unearthing the rare bird: the Katouchka villa. It’s in this sublime house, by the way, sold in 2021, that he received our colleagues for this interview. Villa Katouchka is 3,190 m² of land, 442 m² of living space, two levels, large and bright rooms, a small garden planted with multicolored flowers, a swimming pool whose background mosaic draws a Persian carpet and a desk which opens onto a large terrace. A villa where he enjoyed going with his wife Colette, with whom he has two children: Dominique, born in 1954, and Nathalie, born in 1964.

Spendthrift by nature

“I quickly realized that when I set foot here, an hour later I was a different man, with other interests. I see life in a different way. I feel like I’m on perpetual vacation even when I work all day“, confided Philippe Bouvard au Figaro. Before adding: “There is here everything you look for when traveling the world: nature, the sea, the climate, the cuisine, the panorama, the hinterland, and the casinos. I counted eighteen between Menton and Cassis.” Indeed, the host has always been passionate about gambling.

But he eventually realized that he was living beyond his means. “I have still been very pretentious in my life. I thought I was the navel of the world. I made a lot of money but still managed to live beyond my means. I had 200 cars, three villas with three swimming pools even though I don’t even know how to swim“, he conceded in an interview with Parisian in 2022. An interview in which he also spoke about his relationship with death. He notably specified that he would like “die of laughter“, more “there aren’t enough comics for that anymore“.