AV·004Available
House on the Escarpment
$28,900,000
Big Sur, California
Cantilevered over the Pacific on a single ridge, glazed on three sides, and invisible from the highway below.
- Bedrooms
- 4
- Bathrooms
- 5
- Interior
- 710 m²
Private Estates — Est. 1987
Residences ofconsequence,quietly represented.
Fewer than forty houses a year, across Europe, North America and Japan. Two thirds of them never reach the open market.
The PortfolioSix available — twelve on register
Six houses currentlyopen to enquiry.
Each is photographed by us, surveyed before listing, and held by a named principal. Twelve more are on the private register and are shown on request.
AV·001Available
Villa Sereno
Cap Ferrat, France — 43.6889° N, 7.3311° E
- Guide
- €42,500,000
- Interior
- 1,240 m²
- Bedrooms
- 6
- Built
- 2018
The private registerTwelve houses
Not everything we represent is shown.
Twelve further residences are held privately and released only to buyers we know. Tell us what you are looking for and we will tell you what is on it.
We sell very fewhouses, very well.
Eleanor Vane opened the Hay Hill office in 1987 with a single conviction: that a house of real quality is not a listing to be distributed, but a position to be represented. Nearly four decades on, that is still the whole of the method.
We take on fewer than forty instructions a year. Each is surveyed before it is offered, photographed by our own team, and carried by a named principal from the first viewing to the day the keys change hands. We turn away more than we accept, and we say so plainly when a house is not ready to be sold.
The register that results is small, slow to change, and known to perhaps three hundred people worldwide. That is the point of it.
Founding Partner — London
Four things wewill not trade.
These are not services. They are the conditions under which we agree to act, and they have not changed since 1987.
Representation
Fewer than forty a year
We decline more instructions than we accept. A residence we represent has our full attention, our own photography, and a named principal on the file from first viewing to completion.
Discretion
Off the open market
Two thirds of what we sell is never advertised. Private releases go to a register of qualified buyers we have known, in many cases, for a decade or more.
Provenance
The whole history, in writing
Title, architect, restoration record, servitudes, planning consents. We commission independent survey before a residence is listed, not after an offer is made.
Stewardship
The relationship outlasts the sale
Staffing, insurance, seasonal opening, restoration oversight. Most of our clients retain us long after completion, and many return to us to sell.
The Collection
Five houses, and the particulars that decide them.
01 / 05Advancing
- Guide price
- €42,500,000
- Interior
- 1,240 m²
- Accommodation
- 6 bed · 8 bath
- Position
- 43.6889° N, 7.3311° E
Not amenities.Simply what is there.
A private mooring is not a selling point. It is a reason the house was built where it was.
The water
Pools, protected frontage and private moorings
Wellness
Hammam, cold plunge, treatment rooms
The table
Chef's kitchens and cellars below grade
Guest quarters
Independent pavilions and staff accommodation
Reception
Rooms that hold sixty without strain
InvestmentFive markets
Where scarcityis structural.
In four of the five markets we work in, planning constraint — not demand — sets the ceiling on supply. That is the whole thesis.
We advise on acquisition, holding structure and eventual exit. Where we do not have a view, we say so and introduce someone who does.
Figures are illustrative, drawn from our own transactions to March 2026, and are not a forecast. The hairline beneath each market shows how constrained supply is relative to the others.
They talked us out of the first two houses we wanted. The third we have now owned for eleven years, and not a season has passed where we questioned it.
In their words
The record
In 2025 we represented 38 residences. We have transacted €4.2B since the Hay Hill office opened, sold 96% of them at or above guide, and kept the average client for 11 years.
Rooms at the hoursthat matter.
Scroll the sequence →
Morning, Dune HouseAmagansett Principal bedroom, Villa SerenoCap Ferrat The gate at Kuroi NiwaKyoto The long roomBellagio Kitchen, The AerieAspen Dining, before serviceKyoto
Four people. Everyfile has a name.
You will meet the principal at the first viewing and deal with the same person at completion. We do not pass files between desks.
Eleanor Vane
Founding Partner
London
Tomás Ashford-Reyes
Principal, Continental Europe
Milan
Adaeze Okonkwo
Principal, North America
New York
Sana Fujimoto
Director, Japan & Private Releases
Kyoto
The JournalThree of eleven notes
What we arewatching closely.
Why the Riviera stopped discounting
Supply on the Cap has fallen to fourteen genuine listings. What that does to a negotiation, and why guide prices have stopped moving.
Market note6 minReading a machiya before you buy it
Kyoto's townhouses hide their condition behind beautiful joinery. Six things our surveyors open up before we will take an instruction.
Provenance9 minOn declining an instruction
We turned away eleven residences last year. A note on what makes a house unsellable, and why saying so early is the service.
The house4 min
Tell us what youare looking for.
Every enquiry is read by a principal, and answered within one working day. If we are not the right house for what you want, we will say so and tell you who is.
London
12 Hay Hill, Mayfair W1J
51.5093° N, 0.1440° W
Milan
Via Gesù 7, 20121
45.4685° N, 9.1954° E
New York
620 Fifth Avenue, NY 10020
40.7587° N, 73.9787° W
Kyoto
Gion-machi, Higashiyama-ku
35.0036° N, 135.7788° E