Yesterday my pal "Stone" called me from France(I live in DC). He told me that he went to see the stones in Nice, france a couple of weeks ago. He went also to villefranche to take a pick at Nellcote. Then he went to a bar nearby and started a conversation with a guy in the bar. The man was a carpenter and he told my friend that 2 years ago he did some work on the roof of the nellcote mansion. He showed pictures of him and keith richards at nellcote.Keith Richards still owns the property: he rents it to somebody. Well I didn't know that!!! I thought he sold it when he left in the 70's.
Mops

I always thought that Keith rent the mansion. A pilgrimage to be done for a stone fan. Great place in any case along the Sea.

Keith rented the house during his stay in South of France.
4,000 £ a week !!!

[www.theage.com.au]

One wonders...

...because in David Dalton's excellent book it is said that Keith only rented the place and that his expenses for the house, the cook and the dope were in the 20 000 Dollar a week range...

...but who knows, maybe Keith is in reality the true business man within the Stones who owns real estate all around the world (New York, Jamaica, France, his beach house in England only bought a couple of weeks ago) and rents it to other people to earn his living, because you know you can't live only on touring with some old rockers and releasing an album every eight years or so.... :-)

All Stones books that refer to this period say that Keith only rented the joint. It was something to do with the fact that he wasn't a French resident and the rules at the time prevented "foreigners" buying property in France.

With a smile on your face and a tear right in your eye

Perhaps he bought it later on...just for sentimental reasons....

Keith doesn't own the house - here's what Chuck Leavell says about it in his diary:

Quote

Tom pointed out to us the historic house where Exile on Main Street was recorded…Nellcote. He told us a story about talking to the woman that had rented it to Keith…. and that she had fainted when she saw what shape the house was in after they used it…apparently it was pretty well trashed. She sold it to another woman that Tom met later, and he asked her what it was like when she bought it. She told him there were boxes of tapes and all kinds of stuff laying around…and of course he asked her what she did with all of it…”I threw it away!!” was the reply. No telling what she might have had!

I was in front of Nellcote on august 7 this summer, and we meet Ronnie Wood in his car passing by - here's the picures: [www.rollingstonesitalia.com]
ciao Jacopo

Keith doesn't own the property as said before - according to this link below, the owners are still the Bordes family who originally let it to KR. It is sited off the Rue de Bordes (something like that). Can easily be found using Google Earth sat. mapping online. As you can see from the pics from the weblink, it's fairly remote and inaccessable, except by going down to a private (I presume) beach cove nearby.

[www.stonesplanet.com]

Great pics Jacopo, amazing that RW happened to be passing by. Perhaps he was intrigued to know where it was as well?

even they can get sentimental - no?

heres pic of the Stones truck pulling up at nellcote - looks like a jungle.
[www.iorr.org]

jacopo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was in front of Nellcote on august 7 this
> summer, and we meet Ronnie Wood in his car passing
> by - here's the picures:
> [www.rollingstonesitalia.com]
> a.php
> ciao Jacopo

I have dreams where things like that happen, but OMG - that's one of the most amazing things I've ever heard of! Great that you got a pic of Ronnie there, otherwise this story would have been hard to sell! Glad you were there - what an experience.

Maybe Keith really owns it but he doesn't want people to know.
Can you guess the kind of pilgrimage there would be if people only knew he could be staying there every now and then?
What about Redlands? Anybody tried to get close to it?

Wasn't the property sold to an Italien business man years ago, and he lvs there with his family and is totally seclusive and not interested in any Stones history?

Mathijs

this is easy to verify in france. Just go to the office where all properties are listed called "hypothèques" and you have the name of the owner !

it is amazing to catch RW here at this very moment ! yes maybe he wanted to have just a look