Is planning permission required for an extension in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin?

In the village, the surroundings of the castle registered since 1927 govern. At Cap-Martin, the site belongs to the Conservatoire du littoral and a World Heritage property stands there: the regime has nothing in common. The commune is coastal in both cases.

Can a seafront property be extended in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin?

The strip of one hundred metres from the high-water mark cannot be built on outside urbanised areas. The Cap Martin peninsula is further covered by the policy for the protection of Riviera coastal sites, on the same footing as Cap Ferrat and the Boron and Alban hills.

Can a pool or a terrace be created in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin?

At Cap-Martin, properties are served by narrow lanes in a sensitive site, and no site encroachment on the natural space is possible. Direct maritime exposure is the dominant degradation factor for external works there: grades and protective systems are chosen accordingly.

Expertise · Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

Extensions & villa fit-outs in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

To enlarge without distorting, to elevate without betraying: every extension seems to have always been there. We bring this expertise to exceptional residences in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, with the discretion and rigour for which we are known.

From Cap-Martin to the village, we work at the finest addresses in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin — a limited number of sites, carried through to perfection.

Pools facing the open sea, terraces, pool-houses and terraced-garden landscaping: in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, the extension embraces the slope and the view.

From the village to Carnolès, every enlargement contends with the relief and the protected landscape, to extend the villa without distorting it.

Extending a villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin: two sectors, two regimes

The commune sets side by side two architectural registers that are rarely neighbours: an intact medieval village gathered around a tenth-century castle registered as a historic monument by an order of 28 February 1927, and an emblematic ensemble of the modern movement out on the point. There, on a site of some 2,970 m², stand the villa E-1027 designed by Eileen Gray, the Cabanon built by Le Corbusier in 1952, the Camping Units and the restaurant L’Étoile de Mer. The Cabanon was inscribed in July 2016 on the UNESCO world heritage list, within the series The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.

That neighbourhood has a practical consequence for anyone wishing to enlarge. On the point, a contemporary addition is no provocation: it has a local precedent, and that precedent is recognised worldwide. In the upper village, by contrast, everything plays out within the inherited envelope, under Romanesque vaults and on a rock of pudding stone — a conglomerate of cemented pebbles that does not behave like the limestone of the neighbouring heights. The same word, extension, denotes two unrelated gestures here.

Consent and protected site: what frames an enlargement

Cap-Martin is a site owned by the coastal conservancy, which brings a specific regime of management and intervention. The headland is moreover covered by the policy protecting the sites of this coast, on the same footing as the neighbouring capes. The presence of the registered castle in the village and of a world heritage property on the point brings heritage constraints of a different nature on the two sectors: to handle one with the reflexes of the other would be the first mistake.

As a coastal commune it applies the hundred-metre strip and the regime governing areas close to the shore; it falls within seismic zone 4 under decree no. 2010-1255. The point being advanced into the sea and exposed on several orientations, its external works belong to one of the severest marine atmospheres in our territory, whereas the upper village, backed against the relief and set back from the shore, enjoys an appreciably milder regime.

Works: access to the upper village and footprints on the point

On Cap-Martin, properties are served by narrow lanes within a sensitive site, where site footprints on the natural space are excluded: everything is prepared and folded away within the plot. The medieval village, for its part, is served by stepped lanes and vaulted passages — manual handling is the rule and the width of the passages limits the envelope of what can be carried. The commune stretches from the upper village down to the seafront: the distance and the drop between sectors condition how the working day is organised.

An extension set on the pudding stone, or cantilevered over the sea, is decided at the level of foundations and reworkings: it is structural and general building work that opens the field. High-end renovation then brings the whole residence to the same level, and bespoke finishes and interiors choose between the register of the village — local stone masonry, vaults, renders — and that of the modern movement, timber partitions, industrial materials and minimal volumes. Our crafts in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin are shared between those two vocabularies.