The short version: Mallorca has been drawing famous names for almost two centuries, and each generation came for its own reason. Chopin came in the 1830s for the climate, an Austrian archduke stayed because the island captivated him, writers found Deià, Hollywood found Palma’s harbor and the Hotel Formentor, a painter found silence in Palma, and today’s athletes and actors arrive by sea. This story goes decade by decade; every name has at least two reliable sources, listed at the end, and there are no addresses or private homes: what we tell is the decade and the reason, never where anyone lives.
A timeline, not a map
Our guide to celebrities in Mallorca goes area by area and explains what each place says about the island. This story does the opposite: it follows the clock. Read in order, the names show how Mallorca changed from a winter refuge for Romantic artists into a summer stop for superyachts, and why some places, Valldemossa, Deià, Formentor, Palma, the south-west coast and Manacor, keep appearing in each new chapter.
1838-39: Chopin and George Sand spend a winter in Valldemossa
In the autumn of 1838 the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, already in delicate health, sailed to the island with the French writer George Sand and her children in search of a mild climate. According to the Consell de Mallorca’s Serra de Tramuntana site, they stayed first near Palma and then moved into the old Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa. The Cartoixa de Valldemossa tells the rest honestly: cold, damp rooms, a small rented piano and a composer struggling with his health, and, despite it all, the Preludes Op. 28. The Balearic Government’s tourism site still sends visitors to the cell where Chopin spent that winter. The village today is in our guide to living in Valldemossa.
1867-1915: the archduke who fell for the coast
Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria first came to Mallorca in 1867, aged twenty, to write a book about beetles, and stayed for the rest of his life. The Consell’s Serra de Tramuntana site explains that he bought an estate on the coast in 1872, in time came to own most of the estates between Valldemossa and Deià, and wrote Die Balearen, an exhaustive study of the islands in words and images. One of his houses, near Deià, has operated as a museum in his honor since 1927, according to the Government’s tourism site.
1929 and the 1930s: Formentor opens and Graves settles in Deià
In 1929 two things happened that shaped the island’s reputation for decades. On the Formentor peninsula, the Argentine Adan Diehl opened the Hotel Formentor, conceived as a retreat for his artist and poet friends. The Consell’s history of the hotel lists Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn among its guests; the hotel’s own official history adds Gary Cooper and John Wayne, and the Pollença tourist office names Churchill and John Wayne too. On opening day, according to the hotel, guests arrived by boat, because the road from Pollença was not finished. More on the peninsula is in our guide to Formentor.
That same year, the British poet Robert Graves settled in Deià with the American poet Laura Riding. The Fundació Robert Graves recounts that he built a house there with the proceeds of his war memoir, Good-bye to All That, and in 1934 published his best seller, I, Claudius. The Civil War forced them to leave in 1936. Deià’s story as a village of writers and artists starts here, and our guide to living in Deià picks it up today.
The 1950s: Hollywood in Palma’s harbor
In 1950 Errol Flynn sailed into Palma aboard his schooner Zaca on his honeymoon with Patricia Wymore. The Majorca Daily Bulletin (August 2000) recalls that the yacht stayed moored at the Real Club Náutico for years, and Boat International writes that Flynn ended up living aboard in Palma until his death in 1959. When the tourist boom of the mid-1950s opened the island to the world, the Bulletin (July 2013) recalls, its visitors included Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco, Charles Chaplin, Ava Gardner and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Gardner came several times through her friendship with Robert Graves, who had returned to Deià in 1946; Ultima Hora (September 2020) has published a photograph from the Graves family archive of the two of them at the old Son Bonet airfield in May 1956.
1956 was also the year Joan Miró moved to Palma for good. The Fundació Miró Mallorca explains that his mother’s family was Mallorcan, that he had married Pilar Juncosa in Palma in 1929, and that at 63 he finally had the studio of his dreams in Cala Major, on the edge of the city, designed by his friend Josep Lluís Sert. He worked there until his death in 1983, as the Government’s tourism site and the Palma museum Es Baluard also record. The studios are part of the foundation today.
The 1960s to the 1980s: poets at Formentor, a painter in Palma
The Hotel Formentor became a literary address. According to the Consell, in 1959 the future Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela organized debates there among poets of different languages, and the hotel’s own history records the Formentor Prizes, established in 1961. Meanwhile, Graves lived and wrote in Deià until his death in 1985, and Miró kept working in Cala Major until 1983.
The 1990s: the Tramuntana and the south-west
The next wave chose the coast. Michael Douglas has been coming to the Serra de Tramuntana every summer since 1990, when he bought a property on that coast; he calls the island his second home (Majorca Daily Bulletin, May 2026; Mallorca Magazin, July 2023). In time, his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones became a regular summer visitor too (Mallorca Magazin, July 2023; Majorca Daily Bulletin, May 2026). In the same decade, Claudia Schiffer spent family summers on the island and had a home in Camp de Mar, in the south-west, that she sold in 2017 (Majorca Daily Bulletin, May 2017 and August 2023; Mallorca Magazin, August 2023). The south-west is in our guide to Port d’Andratx and Camp de Mar.
The 2010s: a first lady, a film set and a home-town academy
On August 8, 2010, Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha had lunch with King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía at Marivent, the royal family’s summer residence in Palma, at the end of a private trip to Spain (Associated Press, via The Christian Science Monitor; Fox News). She came back for a private holiday at the end of August 2017 (Hola, August 2017; Mallorca Magazin, September 2017).
In the summer of 2011 the island became a film set. Cloud Atlas, with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, built a large set at Port de Sóller and filmed at Formentor, Sa Calobra and the Puig Major (Majorca Daily Bulletin, February 2013; Ultima Hora, September 2011). The valley is in our guide to living in Sóller.
In 2016 the island’s own star made his mark at home. The Rafa Nadal Academy opened in Manacor that year, and the Majorca Daily Bulletin (October 2016) reported that Nadal opened it in his home town alongside Roger Federer, with a program that helps students find scholarships at universities in the United States. Manacor and its coast are in our guide to Portocristo and Manacor.
The 2020s: yachts, golf and the Tramuntana again
The current decade is written from the water. In July 2025 Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez spent their summer holiday in Mallorca (beIN Sports; Hola), which beIN Sports describes as days between a yacht and a villa in the Serra de Tramuntana. In July 2026 Michael Jordan’s superyacht anchored off Puerto Portals with his family on board and cruised the coast toward Andratx before heading to Ibiza (Majorca Daily Bulletin, July 21, 2026; Mallorca Magazin, July 23, 2026). And in early September 2026 LeBron James played a round at the Son Muntaner golf course, on the edge of Palma (COPE Mallorca, September 7, 2026; Majorca Daily Bulletin, September 11, 2026).
What the decades have in common
Read together, the chapters repeat the same few reasons. Valldemossa and Deià offered silence and a mountain coast to a composer, an archduke and a poet, and they still offer it to people who want to be left alone. Formentor offered seclusion at the tip of the island. Palma offered a harbor and a capital. The south-west offered privacy above the water. And Manacor offered what it has always offered its own: a home to come back to. Working across the island, we still see well-known faces in Palma and Deià every summer, in the same places this timeline keeps returning to.
What you need to know
Who was the first famous visitor to Mallorca?
Among the best documented are Frédéric Chopin and George Sand, who spent the winter of 1838-39 on the island, most of it in the Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa.
Which Hollywood stars came to Mallorca in the 1950s?
Errol Flynn, who arrived in Palma aboard his yacht Zaca in 1950, and, according to the Majorca Daily Bulletin, Grace Kelly, Charles Chaplin, Ava Gardner and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Did Winston Churchill stay at the Hotel Formentor?
Yes. The Consell de Mallorca, the Pollença tourist office and the hotel’s own history all include him among its guests.
When did Joan Miró live in Mallorca?
He made Palma his home in 1956 and worked in his studio in Cala Major until his death in 1983. The studios are now part of the Fundació Miró Mallorca.
Can you visit the homes of famous people in Mallorca?
Only those that are museums: the Chopin and Sand cells in Valldemossa, Robert Graves’s house near Deià, the archduke’s house museum near Deià and Miró’s studios in Palma. Private homes are private.
Where we work
These are the villages where we work every day: homes in Santanyí, homes in Ses Salines and homes in Campos. To compare areas across the island, see our guide on where to live in Mallorca, or contact Villas y Fincas Mallorca and we will answer in English.
Updated October 2026. Every person in this story has at least two reliable sources, consulted in October 2026; we publish no addresses or names of private homes. Sources by person. Chopin and George Sand: Consell de Mallorca (serradetramuntana.net), Cartoixa de Valldemossa, Balearic Government (illesbalears.travel). Archduke Ludwig Salvator: Consell de Mallorca, Balearic Government. Churchill, Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper: Consell de Mallorca and the Hotel Formentor’s official history; John Wayne: Pollença tourist office and the hotel’s history; Grace Kelly: Consell de Mallorca and Majorca Daily Bulletin (2013). Robert Graves and Laura Riding: Fundació Robert Graves, Consell de Mallorca, Balearic Government. Errol Flynn: Majorca Daily Bulletin (2000, 2013), Boat International. Ava Gardner: Majorca Daily Bulletin (2000, 2013), Ultima Hora (2020). Joan Miró: Fundació Miró Mallorca, Balearic Government, Es Baluard. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones: Majorca Daily Bulletin (2026), Mallorca Magazin (2023). Claudia Schiffer: Majorca Daily Bulletin (2017, 2023), Mallorca Magazin (2023). Michelle Obama: Associated Press via The Christian Science Monitor and Fox News (2010); Hola and Mallorca Magazin (2017). Tom Hanks and Halle Berry: Majorca Daily Bulletin (2013), Ultima Hora (2011). Rafa Nadal: Rafa Nadal Academy, Majorca Daily Bulletin (2014, 2016). Cristiano Ronaldo: beIN Sports, Hola (2025). Michael Jordan: Majorca Daily Bulletin, Mallorca Magazin (2026). LeBron James: COPE Mallorca, Majorca Daily Bulletin (2026). This story is for general information only.
