The historic area has long been the city’s most exclusive residential enclave, offering a choice of French colonial homes, traditional Moroccan villas or new builds with plenty of land
5 min
Offering a beguiling blend of rich history and cutting-edge modernity, the seaside neighbourhood of Anfa is where Casablanca’s most exclusive and luxurious residences are located.
The historic Moroccan neighbourhood still bears the original name of the port city, which was called Anfa from the time it was founded around the 10th century B.C., up until the 15th century, when its name changed to Casablanca.
“In the 7th century, Anfa was home to a fishing port. It then lost its influence until the period of the French Protectorate,” said Marc Leon, CEO of Christie’s Real Estate Morocco. The French ruled over Morocco from 1912 to 1956, after which Anfa “became one of the most emblematic districts of Casablanca due to its rich and fascinating history, its colonial and Art Deco architecture, its green spaces and the presence of the Royal Golf Anfa Mohammedia, as well as the royal residence,” he said.
The largest city in Morocco, Casablanca is the country’s economic and business capital, but the peaceful residential streets of Anfa offer respite from the hustle and bustle of big city life. The neighbourhood is set between the beachfront and the modern city centre and is known for its historic sites, its hundred-year-old racetrack and its nine-hole golf course. Together with the neighbourhoods of Racine and Gauthier, Anfa forms part of Casablanca’s “Golden Triangle,” offering a mixture of historic and modern homes, primarily villas set amid lush, spacious gardens.
Boundaries
The Anfa neighbourhood runs from the ocean to a small inland hill. It is bounded to the north by the Atlantic Ocean and to the east it extends as far as the city’s railway line and Avenue 2 Mars. To the south, it is bounded by Boulevard Al Qods, and to the west it encompasses the newly developed Casablanca Finance City, extending along the coastline as far as Madame Choual beach.
Price Range
Luxury properties in Anfa range in price from 17,000 Moroccan dirhams (US$1,705) per square meter to 35,000 dirhams per square meter, said Vanessa Bouskila, sales manager at Kensington Luxury Properties Casablanca. The larger the property, the lower the price per square meter, she added. Prices are primarily determined by the property’s location and its views, she said, with seafront properties commanding a premium.
“The most expensive villa currently on the market is listed at US$80 million,” she said, adding that the trophy properties in the neighbourhood were built by famous architects, such as the private Anfa villa designed by French icon Jean Nouvel or the circular Villa Camembert, which was designed in 1962 by German architect Wolfgang Ewerth. Properties with a famous former inhabitant are also in high demand, she said, citing Villa Bolloré, formerly owned by French industrialist Vincent Bolloré.
Housing Stock
Anfa offers a diverse selection of luxury residences, “a combination of old French colonial buildings, traditional Moroccan villas and new modern constructions on large plots of land, most of which have swimming pools,” Leon said. The neighbourhood is also famous for its experimental Art Deco and modernist villas, designed by prominent Moroccan and international architects.
Anfa is divided into four sections, according to Leon. The most exclusive and sought-after residential district is Anfa Supérieur.
“Located on a hill near the golf course, the royal residence and the homes of Moroccan notables, it is the most popular area and properties for resale are very rare and therefore very expensive,” he said. The district offers very high levels of privacy and security, he added. “There are no nearby commercial amenities. The area is only residential and isolated from the city. You will not find a single traffic light there.”
Another popular residential area is Anfa Inférieur, “a privileged district at the foot of the hill, delimited by Boulevard André Masset and Boulevard Kennedy,” he said. The neighbourhood also encompasses Anfa Raha, an extension of Anfa which was integrated around 15 years ago and offers properties with particularly large areas of land, starting at 2,000 square meters.
Residents who prefer a more modern milieu are most likely to be drawn to the former site of the city’s old airport, which has been reimagined as a business district called Casablanca Finance City, offering high-end contemporary apartments.
What Makes It Unique
With its easy access to both the seafront and the city centre, Anfa is ideally placed.
“The sea and the corniche with its attractions are a few hundred meters away on foot,” Bouskila said.
Alongside its uniquely leafy and calm residential streets—where residents can often be seen out for a jog—the neighbourhood offers plenty of green space, including the more than 100-acre Anfa Park, located in Casablanca Finance City, and the centrally located Arab League Park, with its stately row of fountains. The historic Hippodrome Casablanca Anfa was built in 1912, and horses still race along its sandy track.
Historic landmarks include El Hank Lighthouse, which offers spectacular views of the city and sea, Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest in Africa, with space to host over 100,000 worshippers, Mohammed V Square—affectionately known as Pigeon Square in honour of its abundance of the birds—and Casablanca Cathedral, which was built in 1930 and today serves as a cultural centre hosting art exhibitions and events.
Luxury Amenities
“Anfa borders the Atlantic Ocean and the numerous restaurants and private clubs of the Corniche,” Leon said. “On the city side, multiple ultra-modern private medical clinics have been established, which attract local and international patients.” The area also offers some of the city’s finest luxury shopping opportunities, with a wide range of upmarket international brands available in Morocco Mall and the Anfaplace Mall.
“The most popular sport is golf,” Bouskila said. Royal Golf Anfa Mohammedia is popular not only for its rolling greens but also for its restaurant and bar, where club members meet in the evenings, she added.
Who Lives There
With its opulent homes, a high level of security and an emphasis on privacy, Anfa is most popular with business people and politicians, Bouskila said. Over the years, it has served as a meeting point for influential decision makers.
“The neighbourhood’s history is marked by major international meetings, most notably in 1943 when Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and the French generals Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle outlined the Allied strategy for the post-World War II era,” Leon said.
Notable Residents
Current notable residents include former Minister of Industry, Trade and New Technologies Moulay Hafid Elalamy and his family; President of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises Chakib Laalej; and Steve O’Hana, president of the Morocco-Israel business council, according to Bouskila.
Outlook
Anfa has long commanded high prices thanks to its exclusivity, but in recent years the cost of homes in the historic neighbourhood has soared.
“Since the Covid-19 pandemic, prices have increased—they have never been so high,” Bouskila said. Strong demand for the limited housing stock in Anfa ensures that prices remain elevated in comparison with other areas of the city.
“Luxury products behave the same way around the world,” she said. “Crisis does not impact the price of a Hermès bag or a Ferrari.”
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7 min
PARIS —Paris has long been a byword for luxurious living. The traditional components of the upscale home, from parquet floors to elaborate mouldings, have their origins here. Yet settling down in just the right address in this low-rise, high-density city may be the greatest luxury of all.
Tradition reigns supreme in Paris real estate, where certain conditions seem set in stone—the western half of the city, on either side of the Seine, has long been more expensive than the east. But in the fashion world’s capital, parts of the housing market are also subject to shifting fads. In the trendy, hilly northeast, a roving cool factor can send prices in this year’s hip neighbourhood rising, while last year’s might seem like a sudden bargain.
This week, with the opening of the Olympic Games and the eyes of the world turned toward Paris, The Wall Street Journal looks at the most expensive and desirable areas in the City of Light.
Known for historic architecture, elegant apartment houses and bohemian street cred, the 6th Arrondissement is Paris’s answer to Manhattan’s West Village. Like its New York counterpart, the 6th’s starving-artist days are long behind it. But the charm that first wooed notable residents like Gertrude Stein and Jean-Paul Sartre is still largely intact, attracting high-minded tourists and deep-pocketed homeowners who can afford its once-edgy, now serene atmosphere.
Le Breton George V Notaires, a Paris notary with an international clientele, says the 6th consistently holds the title of most expensive arrondissement among Paris’s 20 administrative districts, and 2023 was no exception. Last year, average home prices reached $1,428 a square foot—almost 30% higher than the Paris average of $1,100 a square foot.
According to Meilleurs Agents, the Paris real estate appraisal company, the 6th is also home to three of the city’s five most expensive streets. Rue de Furstemberg, a secluded loop between Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Seine, comes in on top, with average prices of $2,454 a square foot as of March 2024.
For more than two decades, Kyle Branum, a 51-year-old attorney, and Kimberly Branum, a 60-year-old retired CEO, have been regular visitors to Paris, opting for apartment rentals and ultimately an ownership interest in an apartment in the city’s 7th Arrondissement, a sedate Left Bank district known for its discreet atmosphere and plutocratic residents.
“The 7th was the only place we stayed,” says Kimberly, “but we spent most of our time in the 6th.”
In 2022, inspired by the strength of the dollar, the Branums decided to fulfil a longstanding dream of buying in Paris. Working with Paris Property Group, they opted for a 1,465-square-foot, three-bedroom in a building dating to the 17th century on a side street in the 6th Arrondissement. They paid $2.7 million for the unit and then spent just over $1 million on the renovation, working with Franco-American visual artist Monte Laster, who also does interiors.
The couple, who live in Santa Barbara, Calif., plan to spend about three months a year in Paris, hosting children and grandchildren, and cooking after forays to local food markets. Their new kitchen, which includes a French stove from luxury appliance brand Lacanche, is Kimberly’s favourite room, she says.
Another American, investor Ashley Maddox, 49, is also considering relocating.
In 2012, the longtime Paris resident bought a dingy, overstuffed 1,765-square-foot apartment in the 6th and started from scratch. She paid $2.5 million and undertook a gut renovation and building improvements for about $800,000. A centrepiece of the home now is the one-time salon, which was turned into an open-plan kitchen and dining area where Maddox and her three children tend to hang out, American-style. Just outside her door are some of the city’s best-known bakeries and cheesemongers, and she is a short walk from the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Left Bank’s premier green space.
“A lot of the majesty of the city is accessible from here,” she says. “It’s so central, it’s bananas.” Now that two of her children are going away to school, she has listed the four-bedroom apartment with Varenne for $5 million.
Garrow Kedigian is moving up in the world of Parisian real estate by heading south of the Seine.
During the pandemic, the Canada-born, New York-based interior designer reassessed his life, he says, and decided “I’m not going to wait any longer to have a pied-à-terre in Paris.”
He originally selected a 1,130-square-foot one-bedroom in the trendy 9th Arrondissement, an up-and-coming Right Bank district just below Montmartre. But he soon realised it was too small for his extended stays, not to mention hosting guests from out of town.
After paying about $1.6 million in 2022 and then investing about $55,000 in new decor, he put the unit up for sale in early 2024 and went house-shopping a second time. He ended up in the Invalides quarter of the 7th Arrondissement in the shadow of one Paris’s signature monuments, the golden-domed Hôtel des Invalides, which dates to the 17th century and is fronted by a grand esplanade.
His new neighbourhood vies for Paris’s most expensive with the Notre-Dame quarter in the 4th Arrondissement, centred on a few islands in the Seine behind its namesake cathedral. According to Le Breton, home prices in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood were $1,818 a square foot in 2023, followed by $1,568 a square foot in Invalides.
After breaking even on his Right Bank one-bedroom, Kedigian paid $2.4 million for his new 1,450-square-foot two-bedroom in a late 19th-century building. It has southern exposures, rounded living-room windows and “gorgeous floors,” he says. Kedigian, who bought the new flat through Junot Fine Properties/Knight Frank, plans to spend up to $435,000 on a renovation that will involve restoring the original 12-foot ceiling height in many of the rooms, as well as rescuing the ceilings’ elaborate stucco detailing. He expects to finish in 2025.
Over in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood, Belles demeures de France/Christie’s recently sold a 2,370-square-foot, four-bedroom home for close to the asking price of about $8.6 million, or about $3,630 a square foot. Listing agent Marie-Hélène Lundgreen says this places the unit near the very top of Paris luxury real estate, where prime homes typically sell between $2,530 and $4,040 a square foot.
The Boulevard Périphérique, the 22-mile ring road that surrounds Paris and its 20 arrondissements, was once a line in the sand for Parisians, who regarded the French capital’s numerous suburbs as something to drive through on their way to and from vacation. The past few decades have seen waves of gentrification beyond the city’s borders, upgrading humble or industrial districts to the north and east into prime residential areas. And it has turned Neuilly-sur-Seine, just northwest of the city, into a luxury compound of first resort.
In 2023, Neuilly’s average home price of $1,092 a square foot made the leafy, stately community Paris’s most expensive suburb.
Longtime residents, Alain and Michèle Bigio, decided this year is the right time to list their 7,730-square-foot, four-bedroom townhouse on a gated Neuilly street.
The couple, now in their mid 70s, completed the home in 1990, two years after they purchased a small parcel of garden from the owners next door for an undisclosed amount. Having relocated from a white-marble château outside Paris, the couple echoed their previous home by using white- and cream-coloured stone in the new four-story build. The Bigios, who will relocate just back over the border in the 16th Arrondissement, have listed the property with Emile Garcin Propriétés for $14.7 million.
The couple raised two adult children here and undertook upgrades in their empty-nester years—most recently, an indoor pool in the basement and a new elevator.
The cool, pale interiors give way to dark and sardonic images in the former staff’s quarters in the basement where Alain works on his hobby—surreal and satirical paintings, whose risqué content means that his wife prefers they stay downstairs. “I’m not a painter,” he says. “But I paint.”
French interior designer Julie Hamon is theatre royalty. Her grandfather was playwright Jean Anouilh, a giant of 20th-century French literature, and her sister is actress Gwendoline Hamon. The 52-year-old, who divides her time between Paris and the U.K., still remembers when the city’s 9th Arrondissement, where she and her husband bought their 1,885-square-foot duplex in 2017, was a place to have fun rather than put down roots. Now, the 9th is the place to do both.
The 9th, a largely 19th-century district, is Paris at its most urban. But what it lacks in parks and other green spaces, it makes up with nightlife and a bustling street life. Among Paris’s gentrifying districts, which have been transformed since 2000 from near-slums to the brink of luxury, the 9th has emerged as the clear winner. According to Le Breton, average 2023 home prices here were $1,062 a square foot, while its nearest competitors for the cool crown, the 10th and the 11th, have yet to break $1,011 a square foot.
A co-principal in the Bobo Design Studio, Hamon—whose gut renovation includes a dramatic skylight, a home cinema and air conditioning—still seems surprised at how far her arrondissement has come. “The 9th used to be well known for all the theatres, nightclubs and strip clubs,” she says. “But it was never a place where you wanted to live—now it’s the place to be.”
With their youngest child about to go to college, she and her husband, 52-year-old entrepreneur Guillaume Clignet, decided to list their Paris home for $3.45 million and live in London full-time. Propriétés Parisiennes/Sotheby’s is handling the listing, which has just gone into contract after about six months on the market.
The 9th’s music venues were a draw for 44-year-old American musician and piano dealer, Ronen Segev, who divides his time between Miami and a 1,725-square-foot, two-bedroom in the lower reaches of the arrondissement. Aided by Paris Property Group, Segev purchased the apartment at auction during the pandemic, sight unseen, for $1.69 million. He spent $270,000 on a renovation, knocking down a wall to make a larger salon suitable for home concerts.
During the Olympics, Segev is renting out the space for about $22,850 a week to attendees of the Games. Otherwise, he prefers longer-term sublets to visiting musicians for $32,700 a month.
Hidden in the hilly expanses of the 18th Arrondissement lies a legendary street that, for those in the know, is the city’s most exclusive address. Avenue Junot, a bucolic tree-lined lane, is a fairy-tale version of the city, separate from the gritty bustle that surrounds it.
Homes here rarely come up for sale, and, when they do, they tend to be off-market, or sold before they can be listed. Martine Kuperfis—whose Paris-based Junot Group real-estate company is named for the street—says the most expensive units here are penthouses with views over the whole of the city.
In 2021, her agency sold a 3,230-square-foot triplex apartment, with a 1,400-square-foot terrace, for $8.5 million. At about $2,630 a square foot, that is three times the current average price in the whole of the 18th.
Among its current Junot listings is a 1930s 1,220-square-foot townhouse on the avenue’s cobblestone extension, with an asking price of $2.8 million.
