Château du Crestet, near Vaison la Romaine

A lone castle dominates the tiny village of Vauvenargues, about 15km from Aix-en-Provence. The building, square and forbidding, comprises four towers and is as impressive as the surrounding scenery of endless, lush forest climbing to the rim of Mont Sainte-Victoire. A sign at the gates proclaims: “The Picasso museum is in Paris. Please do not insist.”

Here, far away from the buzz of Cannes, Pablo Picasso retired in 1959. “I have bought the Sainte-Victoire of Cézanne,” Picasso told his art dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. “Which one?” Kahnweiler asked. “The original,” replied Picasso.

Picasso was the lucky finder of a real château in Provence.

“Vauvenargues is one of those rare castles with towers around Aix-en-Provence,” says Elisabeth du Petit Thouars, director of estate agency John Taylor in Aix. “Real castles, such as the ones in the Loire valley, are uncommon in this region. Here, they are usually grand, stately houses without towers. We call them bastides. They used to be the country houses of rich Aixois in the 18th century.”

The grounds of the Picasso estate cover 1,110 hectares. Today the home belongs to Catherine Hutin, the daughter from a previous marriage of Jacqueline Picasso, the artist’s late wife. This summer Hutin opened the castle to visitors for the first time. Though Picasso is long dead – with Jacqueline he is buried near the front door – his influence can still be felt in the castle. A huge fresco in the bathroom displays a faun playing the flute. In the atelier, the floor, made of typical Provençal red tiles called “tomettes”, is still splashed with drops of paint. Through the windows loom gorgeous views on the Sainte-Victoire. To live in this landscape, so often immortalised by his beloved Cézanne, was for Picasso a dream come true.

“To buy a castle is to buy a dream,” says Pascal Danneau from Sotheby’s Realty in Gordes in the Luberon. He cites the example of an American client who bought a small castle in a village. “The outside as well as the interior had conserved their original, 18th-century style. It perfectly matched the dreams of my client. To keep the atmosphere intact he did not even install central heating.”

Château de Vauvenargues, the former home of Pablo Picasso

Danneau has other dreams for sale. One is a medieval castle, fortified by the famous military architect Vauban in the Hautes-Alpes departement, at the northern frontier of Provence. The cliff-top castle covers 3,000 sq metres and can be considered a small hamlet. “The owner bought it because it embodied a boy’s dream. He’s kept it for 20 years.” The asking price is €4.5m.

The castles in Danneau’s portfolio cover a wide price range. The least expensive, an 11th-century village fortress renovated in contemporary style, costs €1.43m. The price of the most expensive remains confidential. “A whole new market has opened up of properties that used to remain in family lines but are now being sold”, Danneau says.

But are there any buyers in these times of recession?

“The market for properties above €5m does not suffer at all,” he says. “The crisis has made the clients more conscious. They want to enjoy every minute of their lives. When they find their dream, they do not hesitate.”

Emile Garcin, who runs a network of 18 agencies specialising in luxury real estate, shares the same experience. “Clients who used to invest in the stock market now choose to invest in real estate,” he says.

Garcin is sole agent for arguably the most beautiful property in Aix-en-Provence, an exquisite 18th-century bastide situated on vineyards. In Les Pinchinats, one of the area’s best neighbourhoods, Garcin is selling another bastide restored in 21st-century style. The house, which boasts seven bathrooms, a home cinema with reclining white leather chairs and a fitness room with a hot tub, is set in an exotic garden and has a large swimming pool. The property, priced at €7.95m, belongs to a couple who find the house too big now that their sons have moved out.

While this property has an aura of Zen-like tranquillity, another in the countryside five minutes north from Aix-en-Provence feels deliciously chaotic. The main house, which has eight bedrooms, is decorated in an opulent, Italian style and holds many surprises, such as three staircases, an inner garden on the first floor, a huge library and a pool room of 140 sq metres. The property (price on application) has two independent apartments, one of them including a Provençal igeon house. An ancient water basin in stone serves as a swimming pool. The home has fountains, old plane trees, a rose garden and what the French call a jardin de curé, planted with lavender and rosemary. It is hard to imagine a more Provençal setting.

Near Vaison la Romaine, Jean-Pierre Fougeirol is selling Château du Crestet, the property of the late architect Roger Anger. In the 1970s Fougeirol founded the estate agency Demeures et Châteaux du Soleil, now Campagnes du Soleil. Once known as le roi du château (king of the castle), Fougeirol has sold fabulous properties such as the castle of the Marquise de Sévigné, Château de Grignan, south of Montélimar, and Château du Martinet near Carpentras. Although retired, he continues to work as a private agent. “I always have one or two castles in my portfolio,” he says.

New owners often have to make renovations. The architects at Lafourcade in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence are specialists and are currently renovating Château de Beaulieu, located in the crater of an ancient volcano near Aix-en-Provence. “This castle was liveable when the owners bought it in 2002 but it did not fit modern requirements,” says Claire Perraton, of Lafourcade. “They decided to renovate it completely. The castle gets a new electricity grid, new plumbing, central heating, air conditioning and an elevator. The finish will be very luxurious, including hand-made stucco and frescoes in some of the bathrooms.”

The owners, Pierre and Nicole Guénant, bought Château de Beaulieu as a private home but changed their minds. The castle will become a chambre d’hôte, aimed at VIPs, with the opening planned for next summer. Bérengère Guénant, the owners’ daughter, will manage it. “My parents bought the castle because they fell in love with it,” she says. “My father considered it a good investment but making money is not the goal.”

Catherine Rollin, whose father bought the dilapidated 19th-century Château des Alpilles on the outskirts of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, in 1979, says: “A castle costs a lot, even when you exploit it.” The property was transformed into a 21-room four-star hotel by Rollin’s mother, with whom she runs it today. In good years they make a profit of 8 per cent. “The major part is reinvested in refurbishment,” says Rollin. “Renovating two rooms quickly amounts to €100,000. On the other hand, living on this magnificent domain, in one of the most beautiful parts of France, I feel very lucky. It’s quite a way of living.”

This way of living draws a clientele of north Europeans, Americans and French (either from Paris or expatriates) to Provence. Not everyone is as fortunate as Picasso to find the castle of their dreams but this is no reason to despair. The architects at Lafourcade excel in transforming ugly villas into beautiful 18th-century-style bastides. It is often a rewarding investment. Bruno Lafourcade recalls a client who bought a property with a nice sea view for €6m. “The villa was charmless,” he recalls. “We changed its style and concept entirely. The renovation, which took 10 months to realise, cost €3m. Before it was even finished, the owners received an offer of €15m.”

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Estate agencies

Emile Garcin, tel: +33 (0)442-545 227,
www.emilegarcin.fr

Jean-Pierre Fougeirol, tel: +33 (0)680-685 407

John Taylor, tel: +33 (0)442-915 400,
www.john-taylor.com

Sotheby’s Realty, tel: +33 (0)490-725 500,
www.proprietesduluberon.com