Homes in the South of France: 6 Picturesque Properties

Elton John and the late Gianni Versace agreed on the subject of minimalism. “Less is less, and more is more,” Versace would say. “And more is good,” John would add. “A lot more is very good.”

It’s not a bad philosophy for the pop star, who can—and does—shop often, shop well, and shop with the same uninhibited enthusiasm that he gives his performances. “There’s nothing more relaxing than an afternoon of shopping,” the musician explains. “It’s the only addiction I have left. I’m compulsive—in the past I could never have just one drink; now I have none. I could never have just one car or just one pair of glasses, so I have lots. I shop, and my decorators make sense of it; I give them the pieces, then they put the puzzle together.”—Elizabeth Lambert

It’s a day before the last solar eclipse of the millennium, and France, like most of Europe, is a little crazy. Everyone is watching the weather channel, listening to kooks predicting an apocalypse and frantically trying to find a pharmacy that hasn’t sold out its stock of protective glasses.

In the hills above the Riviera, the serpentine lanes that lead to the great villas are clogged with catering vans and limos as last-minute guests arrive from the Nice airport for parties. In one of the most fabulous of those villas, commanding a hilltop, Tina Turner—radiant in white muslin—is setting up her telescope on the terrace. She happens to know a thing or two about eclipses, celestial and personal. And she knows from experience that the sun comes out again.

Turner has herself just driven south from her primary residence in Switzerland and is expecting friends from London, Paris, and New York. It’s a somewhat inopportune moment for a leisurely house tour, though not only because of the eclipse. She is preparing to launch her first new album in three years—Tina Twenty Four Seven—and she’s been playing the sound track with a critical ear while steeling herself for the rigors of a world tour. As soon as the king of the heavens has finished his star turn, the queen of rock will start hers: posing for photographers and rehearsing her new music video. But Turner is a grande dame in every respect, and her native southern warmth coincides with an acquired European politesse. Despite the presence of an entourage and the impending invasion of a film crew, she’s relaxed and gracious.—Judith Thurman