Castellaras — the Couëlle Village, The 12-Year Register

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Intelligence Analytics distills one pocket into its DVF metrics: every qualified villa sale across the Castellaras domaine of Mouans-Sartoux over twelve years — Jacques Couëlle's village read by transaction count, by value, parcel by parcel on the cadastre, and under the PLU that keeps it a village.

Key findings

The architect's village

Castellaras condenses Jacques Couëlle's whole Riviera trajectory onto one hill. The young architect rebuilt the Château de Castellaras for the Schley family in 1926 — Provençal in appearance, modern in use. The post-war Couëlle became a maker of villages here: some ninety neo-Provençal houses at Castellaras-le-Vieux, commissioned by the Seligman bank around his own château. And from 1962 the sculptor emerged: the five prototype sculpture-houses of Castellaras-le-Neuf, of a planned fifty — in that office worked Antti Lovag, who contributed shell models and the interior of villa no. 5 before striking out alone toward the Palais Bulles.

Attribution is where money changes hands on signature alone, and it is graded, not assumed: the twelve-work inventory, its evidence grades and its misattribution table are maintained in this office's Couëlle special report. Its register finding frames this pocket: of the twelve works, only the two Couëlle ensembles actually trade — Castellaras is a liquid market inside signed architecture, and the deed series below is that finding priced.

Twelve years on the register

The rules beneath the village

10 % of the land across Castellaras is classified Espace Boisé Classé — permanently unbuildable — and 16 % lies in agricultural or natural zones with no development rights (PLU de Mouans-Sartoux, version in force of 18 December 2025; cadastre). Scarcity here is not an impression: it is regulation.

The sharper protection here is not the hatched layer but the zoning itself: the domaine sits in its own low-density envelope, dimensioned around the fabric Couëlle laid out — the plan does not permit Castellaras to become something else. Regulation and provenance point the same way: the village cannot be diluted.

Planning status as published on the Géoportail de l'Urbanisme at the date of this report — current rules only, never back-dated onto past sales. Shares are of cadastral land area. Zone-by-zone building coefficients are analysed in the per-request edition of this report.

Largest recorded sales

Caveats. The pocket is delineated on the cadastre: sections AP and CD of Mouans-Sartoux — the two sections whose fabric is the Castellaras domaine — taken whole; fringe voies inside the sections are included, and nothing outside them is. The route de Castellaras also crosses five neighbouring sections; the Couëlle special report reads the market by those lanes (43 deeds of €1M+, €126M, ceiling €14.75M in June 2025) — that wider reading and this wall-to-wall pocket are two deliberate scopes of one signal, and the €14.75M deed sits outside this pocket. This report publishes no repeat-sale table: Castellaras-le-Vieux holds many houses on single shared parcels (one parcel carries nine deeds with built surfaces from 197 to 718 m²), so parcel-keyed repeat matching — reliable elsewhere on this shelf — would fabricate multiples between different houses here. The population of 181 villa-scale parcels (≥ 400 m²) is established from the cadastral parcel fabric; shared-parcel holdings mean the true count of dwellings is higher, and the never-traded share is computed against parcels, not houses. Deeds are estate-deduplicated by (date, value). Every figure rests on transactions individually qualified by the Intelligence Unit before entering any average; the qualification protocol is proprietary. DVF records asset deals only — SCI-share transactions never appear, and estates of this rank commonly trade in corporate form, so the true depth of this market is structurally understated. Recorded built areas may cover only part of the conveyed property and are not relied on. 2025 runs through the December DVF release.

Where do these figures come from?

From « Demandes de Valeurs Foncières » (DVF), Direction générale des Finances publiques — the only official record of French property transactions — estate-deduplicated by the Elena Agueeva Intelligence Unit.

Contact this office

The confidential report behind this analysis — full tables, charts and the cadastral plate — is available on request: request the report.

Enquiries on this market reach this office directly.

Emailelena@elenaagueeva.comTelephone+33 7 66 44 02 34WhatsAppMessage this office

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Who built Castellaras, and why does the name matter?

Castellaras is Jacques Couëlle's village: he rebuilt the château for the Schley family in 1926, the Seligman bank then commissioned some ninety neo-Provençal houses around it — Castellaras-le-Vieux — and from 1962 came the prototype sculpture-houses of Castellaras-le-Neuf, five of a planned fifty, with Antti Lovag working in that office before the Palais Bulles. The name matters because attribution prices: of the twelve Couëlle-school works graded in this office's special report, only the two Couëlle ensembles actually trade — Castellaras is a liquid market inside signed architecture.

Does Castellaras really trade above the rest of Mouans-Sartoux?

Yes, by a wide margin. Since 2021 the median qualified villa sale inside the domaine (cadastral sections AP and CD) stands at **€1.65M against €681K** for a Mouans-Sartoux villa — about **2.4× the commune median**. Across twelve recorded years the two sections carry 58 qualified deeds totalling €137M, with the ceiling at €13.14M in December 2025. And 78% of the domaine's 181 villa-scale parcels have never traded once — the village is held, not flipped.

Can Castellaras be built up or densified?

The plan says no. The domaine sits in its own low-density zoning envelope under the PLU de Mouans-Sartoux (version in force, 18 December 2025): **10% of its land is classified Espace Boisé Classé** — permanently unbuildable — **16% lies in agricultural or natural zones** with no development rights, and the constructible remainder is dimensioned around the fabric Couëlle laid out. Regulation and provenance point the same way: the village cannot be diluted, which is precisely what sustains its premium. Zone-by-zone coefficients are analysed in the per-request edition of the Castellaras intelligence report.