Wearing a short red dress, Diana of Wales climbs the stone steps of a staircase that runs from a small private pier to the entrance of a majestic villa with a yellow façade. Accompanied by her sons, William and Henry, the princess greets Mohamed Al-Fayed, who opens his arms to her while his children splash in a pool built on the edge of a cliff with the immense blue of the Mediterranean stretching on the horizon. The summer house of the Al-Fayed family in Saint-Tropez occupies a good part of the footage of the first chapters of the sixth and final season of the successful series The Crown, which fictionalizes the life of Queen Elizabeth II. The splendid villa, baptized as The yellow castle (The Yellow Castle) is not actually in France, but in the Majorcan town of Andratx and there Princess Diana of Wales spent some summer days of her youth, before marrying the then Prince Charles.
The filming of the series took place in September 2022 and now the complex, certainly not suitable for all budgets, can be rented for 59,500 euros per week in high season. In exchange, its guests will have privileged views at sunset from the small private peninsula of Sa Mola, where it is built, they will be able to walk through a grotto, dock at its own pier or enjoy a swimming pool and large gardens while having breakfast with the dishes it prepares. the service staff. More than a thousand meters built in two homes with three bedrooms each that also have a gym, sauna and even a billiard room. The house pays tribute to the Princess of Wales with a suite room in her name, which has remained there since Lady Di spent some summer days of her youth, since its former owners were a couple friends of the Spencer family. “The house was owned by a British couple and the families were known. Diana of Wales came to spend a vacation before she was a princess and that is why one of the rooms has a plaque with her name, to remember that she stayed there,” explains Fabio Palumbo, owner of Unisono Luxury Houses, the real estate agency that is dedicated to the marketing of the property.
The British owners later sold it to a German businessman and the house became the focus of controversy for a time. Its new owner, the German businessman Carsten Maschmeyer, invited the president of Germany, Christian Wulff, to spend a few days with his family on the farm. It was July 2010 and just a few weeks had passed since he was sworn in as president. The controversy over the vacation of Wulff and his family in the Majorcan villa hit the front pages of the newspapers due to the inappropriateness of the relationship between the president and the businessman. Two years later, Wulff announced his resignation after being implicated in a case of influence peddling, of which he was finally acquitted. The house was put up for sale four years after the scandal, in 2014, for 38 million euros, then becoming one of the most expensive properties on the island. The current owners are Asian and spend only a few weeks a year visiting the island, so they take advantage of the rest of the months to make the villa profitable.
The team of The Crown He was interested in the house because of its location and its exterior appearance, since the objective was to emulate the villa in which Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed spent their last vacation in Saint-Tropez. During the first three episodes of the sixth season, the house is the scene of the budding romance between the princess and the heir to the Harrod's department store in what was their last vacation before the fatal accident that ended their lives in Paris.
“The production company had seen the house several times. For them it was perfect because it is a classic property and it had to be set in the nineties. Of course, all the furniture was changed, because even though it is decorated in that traditional style, it is quite new furniture,” says Palumbo.
The production company also rented a huge yacht to recreate the images of Diana and Dodi on the high seas, who in several of the series' scenes are harassed by paparazzi who try to photograph them from other boats. The yacht was also used
to film the famous image of Diana sitting thoughtfully in a blue swimsuit on the edge of the boat's diving board that dominated the magazines of the time. During the three weeks that filming lasted on the island, the streets of the old town of Palma and Andratx were transformed to become Monte Carlo and Saint-Tropez in this sixth and final season.
In addition to serving as a setting for filming, The yellow castle It is very successful among American customers, a market that in the last three years has grown significantly in Mallorca with the launch of direct plane connections from New York. Also among Europeans from Germany, Monaco, Austria or Belgium, the majority are millionaire businessmen looking for a quiet vacation or even athletes like Novak Djokovic, who enjoyed the villa during his stay on the island to participate in a tennis tournament. Palumbo predicts a success in bookings this season: “There is a lot of Netflix tourism, people who want to stay in a special or different place. And even more so in this house, after having appeared in such a successful series.”
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