Justin Hayward House: His Riviera Home, the Genoa Studio and Cornwall

The Justin Hayward house is not a mansion with a listing behind it. The Moody Blues singer has spent the last few decades in a village on the French Riviera, between Monaco and the Italian border, and he has never published its name. What he has talked about, in interview after interview, is why he lives there: a holiday home that turned into a permanent base, a recording studio a couple of hours along the coast in Genoa, and a family whose roots run back to Swindon and down to West Cornwall.

Where the Justin Hayward House Is: A Riviera Village Near Italy

Hayward describes his move to France as gradual. He first had a holiday home in the south of France, and through it he met a community of English musicians living along the coast, some of whom became his backing players. That circle, and the studio he found through it, persuaded him to make the region his permanent base for recording.

Interviewers who have reached him there place him in a village close to the Italian border, and in 2012 his own site described an office between Monaco and the frontier, with keyboards set up around him while he worked. He has kept the village’s name out of print, and so does this guide. Wikipedia lists him among English expatriates in Monaco, and he is a regular presence in the principality, but no property record or listing for a Monaco home has been published.

The Genoa Studio: “Where All My Music Is”

The practical reason for living where he does lies a couple of hours’ drive east, across the border. In Genoa, Hayward works with engineer and producer Alberto Parodi, who he has called his best friend, at a studio he has used for roughly two decades. In a 2018 interview he described Genoa simply as where all his music is.

The partnership produced Spirits of the Western Sky, his first solo album in 17 years, recorded in 2012 in Genoa and Nashville and released in February 2013, with Parodi co-producing and orchestrations by Anne Dudley. When the French television channel France 3 profiled him in December 2004, part of the piece was filmed on the Riviera and part in Parodi’s studio, a sign of how long the coast-and-studio routine has been in place.

The Cornwall Years

Before France became home, Hayward spent long stretches in West Cornwall, around Lelant near St Ives, where he once owned a house. He has called it a magical part of the world and said he misses it. The family connection there did not end when he left: his daughter, Doremi, settled in the area and runs a cranial osteopathy practice in Penzance. She also has a small place in his recording history, singing on “Raised on Love” from his 1977 album Songwriter.

Swindon Roots

Hayward was born in Swindon in October 1946, the son of two teachers, and went to primary school in nearby Shrivenham and then to the Commonweal School in Swindon, where his height earned him the nickname “legs”. By 15 he had bought the Gibson ES-335 that appears on almost all of his records, and he was playing Buddy Holly songs in local clubs and dance halls before answering a Melody Maker advert that led him to Marty Wilde in 1965. He has kept ties to his old school and to Swindon charities, and he still visits family in England; his sister lives in Surrey.

Married Life, Mostly on the Road

Hayward married Ann Marie Guirron in December 1970, and his 1979 single “Marie” was written for her. In 2018, after 47 years of marriage, he joked that although he had been married for nearly half a century, he had only actually been home for about eight of them. She joins him for important shows but otherwise keeps her own life and friends, which may explain why the house itself rarely features in his interviews: for most of the year, the Moody Blues’ last surviving classic-era member has been elsewhere, on tour.

Another Monaco regular, the racing driver Fernando Alonso, has a home story that is easier to trace; see Fernando Alonso’s Oviedo finca and Monaco home.

Sources

• WriteWyattUK, “A question of life balance” (April 2018): the holiday home in France, the Genoa studio, Cornwall, his daughter, his sister in Surrey and life on the road.
• JustinHayward.com, “In the Mood with Justin Hayward” (February 2012): his office between Monaco and the Italian border.
• Goldmine: interview conducted from his home in the south of France.
• Moody Blues Today, “Justin Hayward à Monaco et à Gênes” (2004): the France 3 profile filmed on the Riviera and in Genoa.
• Wikipedia, Spirits of the Western Sky: recording in Genoa and Nashville, Alberto Parodi as co-producer.
• Wikipedia, Justin Hayward: birth, schooling, marriage, daughter, honours.