The Swiss villa owned by screen icon Audrey Hepburn has hit the market. The 18th-century farmhouse in the scenic village of Tolochenaz, Switzerland, around a 30-minute drive from Geneva airport, was owned by Hepburn from 1963 until her death in 1993 — she is buried in the town’s cemetery.
In 2001, Hepburn’s sons sold their mother’s rural retreat to Katharina Beaujolin and her husband, Jean-Marc Beaujolin, the former chairman of import-export business Europ Continents Services.
“The house is called La Paisible, which means ‘peaceful place’, and it really is a peaceful place,” says Katharina Beaujolin, speaking exclusively to Bloomberg about the sale. “It has quite the amazing atmosphere.”
Beaujolin says she and her husband were looking for a large property to bring up their six children and they fell in love with the house for the calm feeling it exuded and its generous size — its previous owner being a Hollywood legend was a fun bonus.
“When I was at boarding school a long time ago, I remember that I had lots of photos of Audrey Hepburn on my wall from her films, she really was my favourite actress,” says Beaujolin. There’s a plaque with Hepburn’s name on the exterior privacy wall of the house, and she says tourists would occasionally stop by and snap a photo or two outside, but it was never intrusive.
“It’s actually quite touching because she died more than 30 years ago now, and that people still want to see where she lived shows how much she meant to people,” adds Beaujolin.
Twenty-four years later, she and her husband have listed La Paisible with Knight Frank for CHF19 million ($28 million). For that, a buyer gets a 12-bedroom, eight-bathroom villa with 10,800 sq ft of space on a 40-acre lot. The house is close to the centre of town, with a privacy wall surrounded by hedges on one side, and a large open space of parkland and trees on the other, with views toward the mountains.
The Beaujolins say the house was a joy to live in. “All of our kids went to school and university here and were quite happy,” she adds. The house is a 20-minute drive from the city of Lausanne and close to the shores of Lake Geneva. “You have very good schools, excellent universities, the lake and the mountains — what else do you want?”
Now that all their children have grown, Beaujolin says the country estate is just too large for them. “We’ve decided to do some downsizing, because it’s just the two of us in this big house, and it felt like the right moment to make a change.”
Inside the property
The home is set over three floors, with two staircases and an elevator. The ground floor houses living spaces, a library and the kitchen — the part of the home Beaujolin says she used the most, cooking for her children.
The primary bedroom is a floor above, with eastern-facing windows that bring a flood of natural light in the mornings. There’s loft space and additional bedrooms, which provide plenty of guest accommodation when their children and grandchildren come to visit.
In the yard, there’s a 15m-long heated pool. “It’s a nice place to invite friends in the summertime when the kids are around with their families. They also like to have parties here with friends who have small kids, too, so the swimming pool gets very active.” She jokes that the crowds would get so big that it would sometimes feel like a public swimming pool.
The home is ideal for entertaining, she says, noting that two of their sons got married on the grounds, with some 150 guests able to join in on the festivities. There are rolling lawns and century-old trees in the gardens.
When the Beaujolins bought the home, they renovated some of it to make it their own. They moved the kitchen’s position in the house and modernised it, saying that it was likely that Hepburn employed a cook, but since Beaujolin did most of her own cooking, she says she wanted the kitchen to have a more prominent place in the house. They also updated the bathrooms, electrical systems and added some guest bedrooms.
The imprint of fame notwithstanding, after 30 years of nothing being done the refresh was needed, Beaujolin says. “The decoration was Audrey Hepburn’s and it was wow — a lot of flowers everywhere on the curtains, and it was perhaps a bit out of fashion.”
However, some of Hepburn’s touches remain. Beaujolin says that from the kitchen, she can see the rose gardens the fashion house Givenchy gifted to the actress.
“When Audrey Hepburn turned 60, she got 60 white rosebushes sent and had a rose garden planted, and half of those are still there,” says Beaujolin, though she regrets that some of the delicate rosebushes didn’t survive the test of time.
Older than its celebrity heritage, five original period fireplaces remain, including one in the primary bedroom.
The home’s connection to one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the 20th century will surely attract attention. Beaujolin thinks the property is ideal for a large family like hers that needs the space and wants to enjoy the safety and lifestyle that small-town life in Switzerland offers.
“In the beginning, it was — yeah, it’s Audrey Hepburn’s house, but in the end, you forget this,” she says. “Now, of course, we’re thinking about Hepburn again, because it’s a good argument for buyers.”
Beaujolin says she knows it’s the right time for her and her husband to move on, but she’ll be sad to leave. She understands why the Hollywood legend loved the home so much: “It truly is a peaceful place here.”
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