Antti Lovag 'Bubble House' — For Sale

The house (above and below), in Tourette–sur–Loup, high on a hillside behind Nice, France, is only 35 years old yet it's already listed as a historic monument by the French Ministry of Culture.

Though construction began in 1970 and has so far cost $7,500,000 the house is unfinished, with completion estimated to require another $1,250,000.

Lovag is an 85–year–old Hungarian architect committed to the concept of organic architecture inspired by shapes and forms found in nature.

The bubble house has been his consuming passion; he still lives on the grounds.

The owner, a French financier in his nineties, is offering the house for $3,000,000, less than half what he's spent on it.

The house has panoramic views of the sea and is totally secluded, a rarity on its stretch of the Côte d'Azur.

It consists of a series of bubbles covered in oval, convex windows, the whole assemblage set into the volcanic rock hillside.

Lovag has agreed to help the new buyer finish the house without any additional fee.

According to an article on the house by Michael Cassell that appeared in the May 14 Financial Times, Lovag is in love with "freedom, serenity and well–being," and believes the sort of living space he creates can achieve that.

The architect has designed three other bubble houses on the same stretch of coastline, one of which is now the summer villa of Pierre Cardin.

Back in the early eighties Cardin was looking for a house in Cannes but couldn't stand the prospect of one of the cookie–cutter villas that had multiplied all along the Côte d'Azur.

He happened across a construction site where Lovag was building a house for an industrialist.

The industrialist died before the house could be completed, so Cardin stepped in and bought it.

Thought termed by some "one part house, two parts hallucination," Cardin considers it his dream house.