Phil Collins may have been born a Londoner, but since his meteoric rise to fame in the 70s, he has called many different places and lavish houses his home.
From mansions in Miami to penthouses in New York and the leafy suburbs of Chiswick and Putney, the 75-year-old singer is nothing short of a jet-setter. His Swiss home, located near Lake Geneva in Féchy, a village in the canton of Vaud, was his second purchase in the country.
While he paid a reported $8.5 million for the estate, his previous lodging in Begnins was purchased as a labour of love in the mid-90s for £20 million, as he wanted a base closer to his then-wife Orianne Cevey.
Selling up a few years after their divorce in 2006, the ‘In The Air Tonight’ singer settled in the five-bedroom, five-bathroom Féchy country mansion that features a recording studio among many other savvy additions. Let’s take a look inside…
A countryside retreat
Leaving a life in Miami behind, Phil decided to return to his mansion in the Swiss countryside for some peace as he battled with health issues. He recently revealed he needed 24-hour live-in care at home to help him with his mobility and medication.
Speaking with hosts on the BBC Era’s Podcast earlier this month, he said: “It’s an ongoing thing. I have a 24-hour live-in nurse to make sure I take my medication as I should do. I’ve had challenges with my knee. I had everything that could go wrong with me, did go wrong with me.”
He continued: “I got COVID in hospital. My kidneys started to back up. Everything seemed to converge at the same time.” The star explained that only one of his knees worked despite having five knee surgeries.
The father-of-five, whose daughter is Lily Collins of Emily in Paris fame, spends his time looking out over the lake from the vantage point of his well-located pad.
A studio revamp
In 2024, a film crew visited Phil at his house in Switzerland. They interviewed the star for a documentary about London’s legendary Marquee Club, a venue regularly frequented by the singer’s former band Genesis.
During that time, the film’s producer, Simon Napier-Bell, took a look around Phil’s recording studio and noted on Facebook that the star had completely revamped his home studio, igniting hope of new music.
Alongside a picture of the pair, Simon wrote: “Yesterday we filmed Phil Collins at his house by Lake Geneva. He was in top form, full of wicked stories, hugely fun. And he’s just had his studio revamped. For sure, before too long, we’re going to hear some new music.”
Phil previously showed off his impressive home studio that was well-equipped to record to a professional standard. Featuring plenty of monitors and mics, he offered fans a tour of the location where he recorded his hit album ‘Going Back’ in 2010.
© Facebook / Simon Napier-BellThe ‘dig me’ room
A self-titled addition to his lavish mansion, hidden at the back of his studio, Phil created a space to house all his accolades, plaques and trophies, and revealed he liked to call it his “dig me” room.
Lining the back wall, hundreds of gold records and other shining awards, including Grammys and Brit Awards, glistened under the low studio lights as the star explained the logic behind his unusual naming technique.
In a clip from the Going Back documentary, he said: “This is the only room in the house with the gold records on the wall. This is the dig me room. Every other room in my house has nothing at all, so it all ends up staying in this room because I’m the only one that usually ever goes in there, so I don’t feel embarrassed by it.”
