The Mediterranean Chapter

14 records around one sea, read together because the Mediterranean is where the collection's sensor is hardest to apply and most worth applying.

Elsewhere a hectare count settles the question. Here it does not: the coast has been inhabited, divided and built along for three thousand years, and what separates an estate from an address is whether there is ground between the house and the street. Villa TreVille has two hectares of cliff and a dock and is an estate. La Réserve de Beaulieu had a building on a boulevard and was removed from the collection by ruling, its code retired.

The Costa Smeralda trio is the chapter in miniature. One client, one architectural committee, three years, three houses — and three different answers about the sand. Pitrizza's is a walk from the rooms, Romazzino's main strand runs into the public beach beside it, Cala di Volpe's is public ground with the hotel's club on it. Every brochure calls all three private.

Wrong for travellers who came for a beach. Several of the strongest entries reach the water by shuttle or launch, and Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc has no sand at all — nine hectares at the tip of a cape, a rock shore, cabanas cut into it and a pool in the cliff.