Is it an art gallery or a St Tropez holiday villa?

, The Times

There’s a familiar-looking painting hanging above a staircase leading to the professional-grade chef’s kitchen in the basement of the St Tropez holiday villa I’m in. The painting features several evenly spaced circles of paint on a white background in a triangular frame. “That’s not a Damien Hirst, is it?” I ask Emilia Jedamska, the founder and chief executive of St Tropez House, the villa rental company that oversees this home. “Yes, it’s his D-Lysergic Acid,” comes the reply. The painting, the chemical name of which is better known as LSD, sold at auction at Christie’s in London for £361,250 in 2012.

On further inspection of the expansive modernist house, the Hirst turns out to be one of the cheapest of the artworks that fill Villa Ama’s seven bedrooms and extensive grounds. Opposite it sits a 2m-high Jeff Koons mirror-polished, stainless-steel ballerina sculpture. Above the breakfast table hangs a colourful work by Takashi Murakami and, in the garden, as well as a 17.5m heated swimming pool and outdoor cinema, there are monumental sculptures by the Austrian artist Franz West and the American artist Richard Serra.

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Villa Ama allows guests to live alongside some of the most valuable art in the world

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The heated outdoor pool at Villa Ama

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A Richard Serra sculpture in Villa Ama’s garden

Art, Jedamska explains, is the villa owners’ passion. “They want to live with it and share it with guests rather than have it stuck in some freeport somewhere.” And in St Tropez’s increasingly crowded and expensive villa rental market, the owners — who are descendants of the Asscher diamond family — hope the extensive art collection will help their villa to stand out. “The vision is not for a standard holiday rental with decorative things slapped on the walls,” Jedamska says. “It’s to allow guests to live with some of the most valuable art in the world.” Their strategy is obviously working — in spite of it costing from €150,000 a week, the house is already almost booked up for summer.

Brits are probably their biggest clients, Jedamska says, but their guests come from all corners of the world. “We have one Swiss client who has come for five years in a row, and immediately books next year when they check out,” she says. “I’d say 80 to 90 per cent are families with children, and it can often be three generations or groups of families. We once had three families from Brazil with nine children between them. We avoid groups of friends, and say no to celebrities bringing along DJs.”

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A colourful work by Takashi Murakami in Villa Ama

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One of Ugo Rondinone’s vibrant ring paintings in Villa Brisas

Villa Ama isn’t alone in adorning its walls and garden with museum-grade art to stand out among some of Europe’s most desirable villas. Nearby, the seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom Villa Brisas, costing €150,000 a week, has a Jeff Koons diamond sculpture, one of the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone’s “vibrant ring” paintings, and three works by Philip Colbert, the British artist. In this villa the owners are taking no risks with sticky-fingered children — each work of art is encased behind protective Perspex.

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Villa Soleil has striking paintings and sculptures around the pool

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The seven-bedroom l’Oasis des Pins overlooks the sea

The six-bedroom Villa Marine on the water’s edge inside Les Parcs, a gated community where many of the super-rich (including the billionaires Bernard Arnault and François-Henri Pinault) have homes, is available for from €110,000 a week through Excellence Riviera. While The Collectionist offers the seven-bedroom l’Oasis des Pins overlooking the sea for £110,095. But not all villas have six-figure price tags — Villa Soleil, offered by the Firefly Collection for €61,335 a week, has striking paintings and sculptures around the pool, and the five-bedroom Villa Stellar, for €55,000 a week on Pampelonne beach, is full of original prints by the photographers Slim Aarons and Terry O’Neill.

Nicolette, the owner of Villa Botania within the Les Parcs, says she rents the villa out in the summer because “the traffic is a nightmare and I’d rather be elsewhere. We have people from all over the world, Americans, British, Swiss, Canadians, Dubai,” she says. Many of the guests bring a cook to prepare meals, and some their own staff. Each has their own specific demands: some want a nanny, others a yacht. “Once one guest asked us to provide a housekeeper to unpack their suitcases when they arrived,” she says, “while another ordered 70 bottles of rosé to be delivered upon their arrival”. Some will also bring their own security guards, in addition to those employed by the villa. Homes with particularly important art collections will also have at least one member of staff permanently on site.

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Original prints by the photographers Slim Aarons and Terry O’Neill in Villa Stellar

The art curator Karlina Nathan, who helps many of the villa owners to build up their collections, says she encourages them to include pieces in their homes by artists who have painted in St Tropez, like Paul Signac, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and David Hockney.

“Art is no longer just a decorative accessory in luxury homes; it’s an integral part of a property’s identity, reflecting the owner’s taste, travels and interests,” Nathan says. And by adding art, she adds, “we create environments that elevate the experience of a home”.

What that experience means here is that, if you rent a different house every holiday, you can wake up to a new collection of art each time. When they’re Hockneys and Picassos, that really is an elevated experience.