South of France Real Estate: How Lord Brougham Put Cannes on the Map

The South of France property market

Property in the South of France has historically appreciated at a rate of between three and five percent a year since the 1950s, apart from a downturn between 1992 and 1999. After that period, prices returned to their earlier rate of growth, and have continued to rise.

Lord Brougham and the birth of Cannes

In 1834, travelling from England to Italy, Lord Brougham was stopped at the Var river, just west of Nice. Nice then belonged to the House of Savoy, as Italy had not yet become a country, and because of a cholera epidemic, the border had been closed and many travellers were turned back.

Looking for somewhere to stay, Lord Brougham stopped in Cannes, then a small fishing village, where he found blue skies and a mild climate. He decided to stay, and built a villa there named after his daughter, Villa Eléonore-Louise. He spent much of the rest of his life in Cannes, returning to England from time to time, and died there in 1868.

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