Harvest Season at the Former Summer Home of Emanuel Ungaro—Where You Can Now Stay

On a breezy late October afternoon, I find myself in a small, timeworn hamlet in the foothills of the Luberon. Across this stretch of countryside, dotted with cypress trees and more reminiscent of Tuscany than Provence, you’ll find less of the postcard lavender and rosé of the north and more wheat, figs, pistachio—and, in this particular hamlet, its olives.

While France isn’t known for its olive oil, with most of what’s consumed imported from Spain or Italy, the Vaucluse region is home to a handful of producers crafting in small quantities. Among them, Domaine de la Cavalerie is the standout. The estate’s 5,000 olive trees produce an organic oil that was named the best in France last year, a bottle coveted by chefs and culinary insiders alike. You’ll find it drizzled over plates in t…

Photo: Chloé Le Drezen

Domaine de la Cavalerie’s legacy runs much deeper than its olive oil, however. Situated within a UNESCO biosphere reserve in the foothills of Provence’s Luberon National Park, the 65-hectare estate has belonged to the Ungaro family for two generations. Originally a 12th-century Templar commandery, it was restored by the late couturier Emanuel Ungaro as a summer refuge where he would gather with family and friends until he passed away in 2019.

Photo: Bastian Achard

Today, the estate enters a new chapter, lovingly reimagined by Emanuel’s daughter, Cosima, and her husband, Austin Feilders, through their design studio, Concept. Over five years of thoughtful restoration, they’ve preserved the spirit of Cosima’s family home, introducing a new kind of hospitality project rooted in heritage, stewardship, and renewal. This fall, they’re opening the doors for the first time, inviting guests to experience Domaine de la Cavalerie, a regenerative 10-bedroom estate spanning two restored residences—and also available as a private villa rental—for a new generation of travelers.

“The idea came shortly before my father passed,” Cosima tells me as she hands me a basket of freshly baked focaccia drizzled with the estate’s olive oil. After his death, she felt an immediate urge to preserve the feelings and memories the house once held, and to share them with like-minded people, just as her father had done for so many years.

Photo: Bastian Achard

“Emmanuel would come here alone or with some of his very close friends, who were writers, poets, artists, and musicians, and just totally retreat,” explains Austin. “His brother lived in the farmhouse and so it was both a family retreat and a creative retreat for him.” Cosima adds: “So the question was: how do we preserve that? How do we make that last? It’s about opening it up to people who understand it, who are sensitive to it.”

For Cosima and Austin, the idea of “new luxury” sits at the heart of their vision—one that values individuality, intimacy, and depth over excess. They know it takes a certain kind of guest, someone with curiosity and a taste for subtlety, to truly appreciate a place like this. “I just think that projects that are incredibly personal are relevant today—projects with a unique vision that immerse you in a creativity that is not the kind of common goût du jour, where everything looks alike. And so we’re sticking to that.”

Photo: Chloé Le Drezen

To be sure, there is nothing ordinary or derivative about this place. The estate’s pièce de résistance is La Commanderie, which hosts seven bedrooms, two kitchens designed for wood-fire cooking, various living and dining spaces, and a sun-drenched library. Each space showcases the Ungaro family’s eclectic selection of antiques collected over the years from their travels, alongside a historic art collection, ceilings hand-painted by students of the Beaux-Arts of Aix-en-Provence, stone fireplaces, reclaimed Italian marble floors, and a grand Venetian staircase.

“I remember seeing my father all the time, with new fabrics, reupholstering furniture, and trying things and then assembling things,” muses Cosima. “I think ‘assembling’ is a big thing in this house; things that have nothing to do with each other, and then suddenly you put them together and it becomes something that just works and represents a unique point of view.” She points to a couch in the southern-facing living room swathed in three mismatched textiles collected from his travels. Nearly all of La Commanderie’s décor remains exactly as Emanuel left it, with Cosima and Austin only updating essentials, like new mattresses and modern kitchen appliances, to meet contemporary hospitality standards.

Photo: Bastian Achard

The home is flanked by two sweeping terraces—the northern terrace is shaded by centennial chestnut trees, antique Italian sculptures, fountains and gardens—with four lounge areas, as well as two dining spaces for diverse dining scenarios. Cosima calls this area the “summer terrace,” the coolest part of the house, where the family often lounged and dined during the warmer months.

Photo: Chloé Le Drezen

“What I love about this facade is the fact that it’s tiered, with a dining area up top, and various spots down below. So there’s really a thing of setting up dinner every night in a different place. And so it’s a bit of a surprise. There’s that excitement of, oh, where’s it going to be, and what’s the view?” she says. Their extensive collection of tableware, sourced over 30 years from travels across Syria, India, Colombia, and regional brocantes, adds a touch of enchantment to every meal, with a different set used for each dining experience. Meals unfold across various locales of the estate, and have always been central to its spirit. Today, under the guidance of chef Bernardo Costantino and shaped by his Umbrian roots and deep respect for terroir, seasonal menus celebrate local ingredients with elegance, simplicity, and a regenerative approach.

Photo: Chloé Le Drezen

The southern terrace sits beside the historic chapel, featuring Tuscan-inspired terracotta terraces and manicured gardens, panoramic views of the Luberon hills framed by Aleppo pines, a freshwater swimming pool surrounded by daybeds, and two lounge areas along with two dining spaces.

Following a short cypress tree-lined path in front of the chapel, you arrive at La Bergerie, a 17th-century farmhouse once inhabited by Cosima’s uncle. Recently, Cosima and Austin have transformed the 300-square-meter residence into La Commanderie’s contemporary counterpart. Designed entirely with reclaimed stone from the estate, natural clay floors and organic hemp insulation, and using natural pigments from the surrounding landscape, it now features four bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and a gourmet kitchen equipped for wood-fire cooking.

Photo: Bastian Achard

Throughout the home, pieces from Emanuel’s Paris apartment and long-stored treasures have been thoughtfully incorporated to mix with Cosima and Austin’s contemporary design, including a 19th-century Chinese black lacquer and gold leaf armoire, a Louis XV console table, a Venetian mirror sourced from Paul Bert, and a curule seat upholstered with fabric from Ungaro’s personal collection.

Photo: Bastian Achard

The standout feature at La Bergerie is the dedicated music room, which is the living room that doubles as a sound space, equipped with a handcrafted Burmester sound system and acoustics designed with legendary architect John Storyk, honoring Emanuel’s passion for music.

“When we talk about experiences on the estate, we really thought about four pillars: food, nature, wellness, and sound, because it’s what we’ve always abided by here,” she says. “The sound experience is important because it’s always been something that my father was passionate about. Classical music always, always played in the house.” I should mention: throughout my stay at La Commanderie, not an afternoon went by without opera vibrating through the home. “His dream was to have piano concerts in the chapel. And so the music aspect is really something that we’re cultivating here.”

Outside La Bergerie, a private Roman amphitheater–style terrace offers sweeping Alpine views, framed by the freshwater pool and gardens designed with landscape architect Arnaud Casaus, blending North African influences with a bold Mediterranean style. The terrace overlooks their open-air wellness space, La Source, featuring a cold plunge, hammam, and sauna. “Wellness, for us, has always been more connected to simple things,” she says. She adds that massages will be offered in the chapel, as well as sound baths and sound meditations.

Photo: Bastian Achard

“The last thing I want to do is start creating artificial experiences that don’t belong to the place,” Cosima adds. “It’s more about, how do you package all of this?” While the idea felt clear and close to home in theory, executing it took some reflection.

“I think what was easy with the project was that we never thought it would be this hard,” Austin admits with a winsome sincerity. “The easy thing was just being naive enough to think that we could take something that was working in a sense: an incredible home, incredible people coming here, a built-in lifestyle in place of how people, the rhythms of the day and the meals flowed, and that it was so natural to us that it could just continue.” Of course, turning the home into a business meant adding a whole new layer of structure behind the scenes. “So while the format’s changing a bit, in essence what we did was transcribe the existing lifestyle that Cosima grew up in—and that Emmanuel and Lara, her parents lived—for people from around the world.”

Photo: Chloé Le Drezen

In order to translate that into something that could be shared with travelers, every detail, from staffing to daily rhythms, had to be thoughtfully organized.

A stay at Domaine de la Cavalerie is fully guided and deeply personal, with a dedicated team of housekeepers, chefs, and a guest manager who prepare crafted menus and curate meaningful moments that remain true to the story of the estate. Every experience is designed to immerse guests in the passions and traditions that have shaped the family’s life.

Food lovers can begin their day wandering the region’s vibrant markets with the chef, selecting the freshest ingredients before returning to the estate to cook a signature dish, taking you from market to table. For those drawn to art and history, curated journeys with expert guides reveal hidden antique shops and private collections, offering a hands-on encounter with objects and treasures that reflect the Ungaro family’s refined taste and deep appreciation for curation.

As we gather around a table at the edge of the grove sipping the first drops of olive oil from the harvest, the early-afternoon light catches the silver-green leaves of the olive trees, while the harvest crew moves methodically through the rows, plucking olives from the branches and letting them fall into the nets below.

Photo: Chloé Le Drezen

“Emanuel planted olive trees because he didn’t want to make bad wine,” Austin notes. “There was no vision of becoming an olive oil producer. It was more, I think, an olive grove and an olive tree as a symbol of peace and beauty, and because of that, he planted trees.” When the trees started bearing fruit, Emanuel and his brother, who oversaw the property at the time, began harvesting some in small quantities and selling it directly to the mill. “It was a very artisanal operation,” Austin explains.

“Since Cosi and I took it over, there’s a real responsibility to take 15 hectares of olive trees that are now 35 years old and ask, okay, what do you do?” He continues. “So, it took us a second to figure out how to become farmers. Now we prune at the right time, we harvest at the right time, we protect them against diseases with organic treatments, clays and things like that. So we learned all these amazing tricks to care for the grove and today we make one of the best olive oils in France.”

As the afternoon stretches on and the harvest continues, it becomes clear that the story of Domaine de la Cavalerie isn’t one of reinvention, but of roots finding new life in the Provençal soil. Suffice to say, it’s in great hands.

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