Billionaire John Caudwell has opened his £300m development on the French Riviera, a ten-storey luxury complex he says he never expected to turn a profit from.
The Phones4U founder says his sole ambition for Le Provencal was to “create the very, very best in class that was the best in the area, the best in the world.”
Caudwell founded Phones4U in 1987, growing it into the UK’s largest independent mobile phone retailer with more than 600 stores before selling its parent company for just under £1.5bn in 2006.
Le Provencal was originally constructed as a hotel a century ago but stood derelict for 20 years before Caudwell spotted it during a coastal cycle ride, then sat untouched for another two decades after that.
The billionaire has personally overseen the redevelopment of the site into 41 super-luxury flats and penthouses, which are now being opened to agents following years of painstaking renovation work.
In its heyday, Le Provencal welcomed guests including Zelda Fitzgerald, Coco Chanel, and much of Britain’s aristocracy, lending the development a layer of heritage that Caudwell says influenced its interior design and room naming.
Villa Zelda, one of the flagship apartments, overlooks a lawn where F. Scott Fitzgerald and former Prime Minister Winston Churchill reportedly once shared a bottle of whiskey, and is being listed at €27m.
Caudwell, who backed Sir Keir Starmer at the 2024 general election, now says he feels “misled” by Labour and hopes to return his political allegiance to the Conservatives.
He described Labour’s decision to end the non-dom tax regime as “disastrously unfair,” warning that its “draconian” Budgets are actively pushing wealthy residents out of the country with no clear strategy to attract replacements.
“If you drive people out, how do you attract new people that are not in?” he said, adding that he knows “a handful of friends in Monaco that have left the UK.”
Caudwell argues that Labour’s policies, including hikes to minimum wages and national insurance contributions, have ultimately undermined the government’s capacity to support the most vulnerable in society.
“We’re all pushing to the same level of success to make Britain successful, to make companies successful, and as a consequence to be able to look after the poorer people in society,” he said, calling Labour’s approach “misguided.”
Gracing the entrance of Le Provencal is a £250,000 marble statue of Caudwell himself, casually posed in jeans and a suit jacket in a water fountain, which he describes as an afterthought rather than a planned centrepiece.
“I just suddenly came up with the idea: why don’t I put a statue in that pool?” he said, explaining the decision came after concluding that a plaque alone was “not very prominent, really.”
Caudwell says the mixed public reaction to the statue reflects a broader cultural discomfort with wealth in Britain, contrasting it with how Americans tend to celebrate those who achieve financial success.
“Often in the UK, people are successful, people want to knock them off the pedestal. You can see that on my social media all the time,” he said.
Despite having committed to giving away 70 per cent of his wealth to charity, Caudwell says criticism persists, and he is calling on Britain to adopt a more appreciative attitude toward success.
“I think Britain ought to be more proud of success,” he said, a sentiment now rendered in marble at the gateway to his most ambitious project to date.