The road that climbs toward the quartier Saint-Christophe above Grasse narrows quickly, flanked by dry-stone walls and the silver undersides of olive leaves catching the morning light. Up here, the city's famous perfume industry feels distant — it is the older Grasse that asserts itself: terraced hillsides, centuries-old trees, and a view that sweeps from the Esterel massif to the eastern edge of Nice. It is into this landscape that Domaine de la Mouissone sits, quietly and with some authority.
The domaine was once the property of the Chiris family — the prominent Grasse dynasty whose name is woven into the town's industrial and philanthropic history. The Lockett family acquired the estate in 1998 and has since undertaken the painstaking restoration of its twelve levels of restanques, the traditional Provençal dry-stone terracing that once shaped every productive hillside in the arrière-pays. Rebuilding those retaining walls was not cosmetic work; it was an act of horticultural archaeology, recovering the original geometry of a working olive grove from beneath decades of encroachment.
A Garden With Rooms
What distinguishes Mouissone from a simple agricultural holding is what the Lockett family chose to do once the structure was restored. Across the three hectares, they introduced a series of thematic garden spaces — distinct in character, linked by the olive trees that predate everything else on the property. The result is a landscape that moves between moods: shaded and contemplative in one section, open and luminous in the next, with the coastal panorama always available as a kind of punctuation mark between the planting.
"Le regard embrasse les paysages côtiers de Nice à Théoule dont les variations au gré des saisons ne cessent de nous enchanter." — Domaine de la Mouissone
That view — from Nice to Théoule-sur-Mer — is not incidental. At this elevation above Grasse, the Côte d'Azur reveals itself as geography rather than postcard: the curve of the coast, the layering of headlands, the way early summer haze softens the distinction between sea and sky. In June, the light is long and the temperatures on the hillside remain manageable well into the afternoon.
The Visit: What to Expect
From 5 to 7 June 2026, Domaine de la Mouissone opens its gardens for a guided discovery visit — a visite commentée led by the owners, who bring to it their own accumulated knowledge of and affection for the place. The format is unhurried: a walk through the olive grove and its thematic gardens, with commentary on the history of the estate, the restoration of the terracing, and the planting choices that give each section its particular atmosphere.
Practical details worth noting:
- Admission**: €15 per adult; free for children and adolescents under 18
- Location**: 79 chemin Saint-Christophe, 06130 Grasse
- Further information**: lamouissone.com
Grasse itself — a thirty-minute drive inland from Cannes, less from Antibes — rewards a longer visit. The old town's narrow streets, the covered market, and the Musée International de la Parfumerie offer a full half-day of context before or after the estate. In June, the jasmine and roses that supply the town's perfume houses are approaching their harvest, and the hillsides carry a particular intensity of scent that no manufactured fragrance quite reproduces.
There is something instructive about spending a morning in an olive grove that was nearly lost and has been carefully recovered. The trees themselves — gnarled, unhurried, indifferent to fashion — provide a kind of counterweight to the more conspicuous pleasures of the coast below. A visit to Mouissone does not compete with the Riviera; it simply offers a different register of the same landscape, one measured in centuries rather than seasons.
