Artful Escapes: Domaine de la Cavalerie
The seven-bedroom sanctuary still holds fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro’s personal treasures, just as he arranged them
Set amid 160 acres of olive groves, Domaine de la Cavalerie occupies the 12th-century estate legendary couturier Emanuel Ungaro transformed into his own creative refuge. Following his death in 2019, his daughter, Cosima, and her husband, Austin Feilders, painstakingly restored the property into a dazzling sanctuary that can be reserved in its entirety.
Left largely unchanged, the seven-bedroom La Commanderie holds the fashion designer’s personal treasures just as he arranged them. Seasonal menus, prepared by a rotating roster of acclaimed chefs, arrive on the family’s eclectic mix of tableware sourced from decades of travel abroad. A historic art collection threads throughout the salon-style interiors, where a grand stair imported from a palazzo in Venice and antique furniture upholstered in Ungaro’s mismatched textiles preside under expressive ceilings painted by fine arts students from nearby Aix-en-Provence.
Past an 80-foot swimming pool lies La Bergerie, a 17th-century shepherds’ house reimagined as the main villa’s contemporary counterpart. The residence centers on a living room that doubles as a listening area, conceived with studio-quality acoustics. An open-air wellness space, La Source, features a sauna and a cold plunge and draws water from the site’s natural spring.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2026 Summer Issue in the section “Artful Escapes.” Subscribe to the magazine.